Integration of the Normans with the Saxons in Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe

Abstract

research paper explores hostility between the noble Saxons and the brutal Normans followed by integration in Sir Walter. The situation of the Saxons was troublesome, unbearable and completely suffocated. Scott’s Ivanhoe. Scott’s novel chronicles the medieval events, characters and settings in a realistic mode of fictional representation. After Norman Conquest, the power had completely been shifted in the hands of the Normans. The whole race of the loyal and honest Saxons were disinherited and subjugated under the Norman political influence Dramatically, the marriage between the Saxon Norman Ivanhoe and the Saxon heiress Rowena reconciles the difference between the two hostile races leading to lasting peace and resolution. The Ivanhoe- Rowena marriage not only contributes to the formation of order but also accelerating prosperity and fraternity in England in the Middle Ages. Scott,by exemplifying this integration, wants to form and accelerate the analogous type of national integration and fraternity among the Scotts and English in the Romantic period where there was extreme domination and exploitation over the Scotts by the English. Moreover, Ivanhoe, more than a literary landmark,is a memorable narrative of a national myth: the synthesis of England from the Norman and the Saxon race which is set entirely in England with historical setting of the late twelfth century. This research analyses Ivanhoe through the perspective of the theory of historical fiction posited by Lukacs. The analysis reveals that Scott’s emphasis on integration is typical of the need for national integration during the Romantic era when the British society was in disharmony due to the conflict between the Scotts and the English.