Blackface Minstrelsy--Castle Rackrent Cont.

The continuation of Castle Rackrent marches on…

In response to the question: What is the connection Egenolf is making between minstrelsy and “blackface” and Edgeworth’s use of an Irish “dialect” in her novel? Can you point to places in the novel where you see this kind of performance on the part of Thady Quirk?

Egenolf writes, “Edgeworth’s blackface performance as Thady attempts to reinscribe a system of benevolent patronage in Ireland.” This is basically saying that through her character of Thady, she tries to reintroduce a compassionate support of Ireland, through blackface. This is done through Thady’s personality of the “foolishly loyal servant.” Egenolf also says that Thady’s ‘personality’ was used to “sugarcoat” and ease, in a way, the ways of the native Irish and the “horrors they had committed” during the rebellion of 1798. Though I took a liking to Thady’s character right off the bat, Egenolf comments that the late trend is to view Thady as “less innocent than he first appears.” See, I viewed him that way after I read into the story a bit more. Egenolf seems to have a very strong opinion that Edgeworth was trying to “tone down” the reality of what happened in Ireland during this period, when in reality she knew exactly what was going on. She was trying to make a different situation out of it, using a fictional novel to differ from real life. This is where blackface minstrelsy comes into play: it’s basically the same concept that she was doing except this occurred in parts of America.

Black minstrelsy “toned down” slavery and racism in America by having white people tell the tales of the African Americans themselves. They used costume make-up for transforming into the American slave (black face make-up, overly exaggerated lips) and put on performances which showed them “making history their own story.” In my opinion, it’s almost exactly what Egenolf claims Edgeworth to be doing in her own Castle Rackrent. Egenolf writes, “In England’s oldest colony, Ireland, dialect and language were, of course, the markers of difference, and these become the means of Edgeworth’s performance in Castle Rackrent.” When she says the ‘markers of the difference,’ she means to point out that although black minstrelsy allows a performer to ‘play the part’ of many different ethnic roles without a change of makeup, the only main difference between distinguishing the characters was through dialect.

Thady describes the scene between Sir Kit and his Lady what seemed to me as nonchalant. I may be wrong, but in my eyes he definitely ‘toned down’ the whole situation between Sir Kit and locking his Lady up. He also mentions that they still held conversations and he still cared about her though she was locked away because of pure embarrassment. I don’t know about anyone else, but if that situation happened in real life I’m sure it would not go so perfectly. Maybe perfect isn’t the best word, maybe ‘smoothly’ would be better. It’s hard to imagine that that would have actually happened in history. Perhaps I took it the wrong way, but throughout the whole story I have to agree with Egenolf: Maria Edgeworth definitely uses blackface minstrelsy in Castle Rackrent.