Holding Out for a Hero
It is a time of profound discontent for the British people. The one true King is off on Crusade to the Holy Land and the stewardship of the country rests in the hands of his scheming brother indifferent to everything but holding onto power. The people are oppressed in a climate of increasing political instability. Fearful that the rightful King will never return to reclaim his throne, a nations turns its worried eyes to Ivanhoe. And, to a lesser extent, that roguish outlaw fella named Robin.
Culture Clash
A struggle to determine the future course of history on the British Isles is also raging. On one side stand the Germany culture of the Saxons and on the other is the French influence of the Normans filtered down through their origins in the Scandinavian. It is a tale as old as time: The Saxons saw the Normans as elitist and arrogant while the Normans viewed the Saxons as having little more culture and education than swine. Kill that swine, cook it and for the Normans it becomes pork and finally worthy of attention. Underlying the discontent and confusing engendered by the King’s absence and his brother desiring a permanent promotion is the constant maneuvering among the representatives of the Saxons and the Normans to gain political leverage.
Idealized History
Technically, Ivanhoe is an example of Romantic historical fiction. Actual figures from history interact with fictional inventions of the author and the story is set against the backup of a historical events. While not nearly reaching the level of purely invented revisionist fictional history like, for instance, Oliver Stone’s movie JFK, certain liberties have been taken with specifics. The larger problem for historians is that Ivanhoe’s grander sense of history is one profoundly idealized from the less Romantic actual history. Just as many younger Americans have had their understanding of many basic facts of the JFK assassination perverted beyond all resemblance to the known facts by taking Stone’s movie as history, so have generations of readers constructed an image of medieval history through romanticized fictions like Ivanhoe.
Religious Intolerance
A major subplot of Ivanhoe details the story Rebecca, a Jewish outsider amongst the predominantly Christian Britons. Amidst the backdrop of the King heading off one of the Crusades to preserve the Holy Land from the infidels and heretics, Rebecca eventually finds herself being accused of witchcraft by the Knights Templar. The suggestion that her being a witch is inextricably tied to her being Jewish combined with the King of England sacrificing his duties to his people to pursue the distinctly anti-Semitic purpose of the Crusades adds of layer of religious tension to the novel which demonstrates that while Scott may have idealized certain aspects of history, he confronted others head-on even when there was no particular need to do so.
