Social Concerns

Two areas of concern may be found in Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe: the matter of chivalry and its effect on social and cultural behavior, and the subject of racial attitudes.

While Scott is often regarded as something of an advocate of the chivalric code, largely because he wrote so intensely about it and because he acted in a chivalric manner in his personal and business affairs, actually he suffered no illusions about the code. He knew that its day had passed and that a new era had no room for such a rigid and often barbaric set of standards.

However, he wanted to write a novel about a different time and place from the relatively recent Scottish settings with which he had dealt in other works. Thus, he selected the heart of England during the last years of the twelfth century and focused on the hostility...