As students, especially American students, we have been taught time and time again of the noble and righteous leaders that this world has seen. Maria Edgeworth, in her first and most successful novel, goes out to prove how wrong we are in assuming this about the leaders of the late 18th century. Through her noble and aristocratic heads of the Rackrent estate, she shows us how both power and money corrupt. She then goes on to disprove any notions we had regarding nobility, especially nobility of that time period, and show us all the flaws which they posses and all of the corruption they were a part of. .
Through each heir of the fictional Rackrent family we are shown a different way power can be and, more than likely has been, abused in the past. Her first heir Sir Patrick, who threw parties so extravagant that "not a man could stand after supper but Sir Patrick himself" (pg. 9), readers are shown how vices and temptations can corrupt, and ultimately destroy power. She uses her other characters to illustrate many problems associated positions of authority, such as, ill-preparedness for their titles, tactics of extortion, laziness and refusal to do any work to assure their estate. Ultimately, in her last and most obvious example of this, Sir Condy, has the entire state taken from underneath him by Jason, one of his financial advisors. Had Sir Condy known even a little bit about his title and his function on the estate the Rackrents would still be in power.
In the novella, Edgeworth's statement about the corruption of people in power is plain as day and very tough to miss. Much like Burke did with the French hierarchy, Edgeworth showed, though fictionally, that the problems in Ireland stemmed from the top down, not the other way around like most people of the day perceived.
