Property, Identity and Maria Edgeworth

In the essay "Homage to the Empty Armor" Natasha Tessone explores the roles that identity and property play within Maria Edgeworth's Harrington. Tessone argues that these themes are the primary reason behind the "fairy-tale" like ending. In the concluding chapter of the novel, we learn that Berenice's mother was a Christian Protestant, thus removing the issue between a husband and wife being of different religions (Edgeworth, 290). Likewise, this allows Harrington to once again be eligible for his father's inheritance. Considering that Tessone argues that "Edgeworth's ideologically inflected need to deessentialize, deflate, and indeed destabilize the political category of property," it would seem that this ending does the exact opposite (Tessone, 460).

Further issues that Tessone raises with Harrington include Edgeworth's blending of historical events to conform to what she is trying to say through her novel. The antisemitism displayed in the 1780 riots wasn't quite as present as Edgeworth leads readers to believe. Tessone argues that making the focus of the mob to be both Catholics and Jews, "religious identities collapse into one another to emphasize the damaging effects of an irrational prejudice" (Tessone, 461). Throughout the duration of the riots, Mr. Montenero and Harrington are protected by "the orange lady," a character of the lower working-class, yet who nevertheless shows herself to be cunning and earnest. Through the orange lady an entirely different perception of religious identity is offered. Unlike Harrington, who has had to go through a great deal of inner turmoil in order to reconcile his antisemitic beliefs, the orange lady shows that ignorance does not always lead to discrimination.

Further obscuring both property and identity is the scene in chapter ten where Harrington is forced to address the intolerance of both himself and his country. Tessone says it best when she states that: "The tower of London, thus, figures as a site where England's ideal of heritage, its persistent history of xenophobic intolerance, and the pathology resulting from both of these notably English traditions converge" (Tessone, 451). In terms of identity, this scene depicts that the inner struggles Harrington has been having with his own antisemitism reflect the difficulty that the whole of England has with confronting and acknowledging its own racism. Regarding property, the Tower of London mirrors the dichotomy found in Harrington, and by extension all of England. Along with functioning as a museum emphasizing English heritage, during the French revolution the tower was used to hold and interrogate French spies. Confronted with this blatant duality, "Once forced to reflect on the horrors of his childhood, Harrington's associative mind can no longer interpret these national icons without referencing murder and torture" (Tessones, 451).

Discussion Questions:
1) Aside from the Orange Lady, what other characters obscure the conventional perceptions of identity?
2) Is Edgeworth's manipulation of historical events tactful or does it needlessly insert her own personal opinions? From the other authors we have read, where else does the manipulation of history occur and how does Edgeworth compare?

related articles:
James Harrington's "The Commonwealth of Oceana; and, A System of Politics" cited throughout Tessone's article.