The Big House Trope:

The theme of the ‘Protestant manor’ is a characteristic topos in Anglo-Irish literature, where representations of this metaphorical space become symbolic of the culture of the Protestant colonial elite, which dominated the political, economic and social scene in Ireland from the seventeenth century until the early twentieth century, when the series of events that led to the foundation of the Irish Free State and the transformations produced in the political, social and economic context undermined the privileged position of this group. The article seeks to delineate the characteristic tropes of this theme by analysing three seminal texts in the Protestant Manor novel tradition, namely Maria Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent, Sommerville and Ross's The Real Charlotte and Eizabeth. Bowen. The final case study shifts the focus to a contemporary text, represented by Irish director Neil Jordan's film High Spirits, which reconfigures this imagistic space through parody and simulacra, revising the cultural conventions of this theme