The Macdermots of Ballycloran (1847) is the first novel written by Anthony Trollope (1815_82). An English outsider writes the story, but the tale of the Macdermots was first told to him by a Catholic Irishman. By transcribing the Irish tale, the English writer has control over the narrative of the Irish. These two viewpoints are an important element of the novel. In this paper, I will discuss how Trollope\u27s dual attitudes are represented in this novel. This is the story about the downfall of the family Macdermots. Trollope thinks that Ireland is misgoverned by England. His view is symbolized in the oppression of the poor by dishonest landlords and Ussher\u27s seduction of Feemy. Trollope compares the miserable life of the family to an Ireland that is unjustly treated by England. While Trollope sympathetically describes the miserable life of the family and indicates that some of the problems in Ireland are caused by England, he never approves of breaking the Union between Ireland and England and fixes the responsibility of problems to some extent upon the character of the Irish. Thus, the conflict between his sympathy for Ireland and his conservative view is shown in the story. As Trollope says in his Autobiography, he had lived a life full of misery and loneliness since his childhood. His life improved after he went to Ireland at the age of 26. He became an Englishman who knew Ireland well. Though he adapted himself to the Irish community, he remained an outsider because of his Englishness. Young Trollope\u27s miserable life and his ambiguous position are reflected in Thady Macdermot, the hero of the novel. He is a son of an Irish Catholic landlord though he practices a different religion than the other landlords. Though his family is as poor as his tenants, they are separated by the class system. Thady is deeply troubled by the attention given his sister Feemy by Captain Ussher, who is a Protestant and a police officer in the service of the English. While she waits for Ussher to elope with her, she faints. When Thady sees Ussher dragging the unconscious Feemy, he beats Ussher to death, believing that Ussher is abducting his sister against her will. Thady is convicted and publicly executed as a political assassin because the jury considers Thady\u27s act as premeditated murder with a political motive. On the day of his execution, no one appears at the scaffold and shops remain closed because Father John, a parish priest and other Catholic priests asked their parishioners to abstain. In this scene, Trollope\u27s sympathy toward Thady surpasses his own conservativism, and he fails to control his emotion because of his compassion for Thady. Trollope\u27s two diverse points of view are an essential component of himself, especially in his Irish novel
