Near the middle of Ivanhoe, after having kidnapped Rowena with the intent to force her to marry him, Maurice de Bracy makes the surprising claim that he is Rowena’s prisoner, not the other way around. Likewise, after kidnapping Rebecca, Sir Brian repeatedly complains about his inability to resist her charms. Despite these claims of male helplessness, it is Rebecca and Rowena who are locked in tower rooms; they alone are vulnerable to violence and rape. They are pawns in the schemes of powerful men. Their shared plight suggests a very narrow range of opportunities for women in the world of Ivanhoe: dependent on men for protection, they can do little of importance on their own. But the novel actively subverts the idea of the elevated yet helpless damsel. Although it doesn’t give its women the same autonomy as its knights and princes (this would do violence to historical fact), the book nevertheless makes a powerful claim for the humanity and complexity of Rebecca, Rowena, and Ulrica.
Rowena is perhaps the least fleshed-out, but even she asserts her autonomy in her ongoing refusal to marry Athelstane, even against the wishes of her guardian Cedric. Ulrica, who initially seems almost completely victimized by her capture and rape at the hands of invading Normans, redeems and revenges herself by burning down Torquilstone and helping Cedric and his friends to escape. Rebecca is the book’s moral center and perhaps its most fully realized character. While acknowledging her beauty, the book places heavier emphasis on her medical skill and moral clarity. She most fully embodies the ethics of courage, steadfastness, humility, honesty, generosity, and faithfulness which the book’s Jewish and Christian characters espouse. She does not do this without struggle; she cannot fully tame her feelings for Ivanhoe, and she must draw on her inner resources for the courage necessary to face the possibility of being burned at the stake. By portraying her struggle, the book makes her a role model for all readers rather than an idealized caricature. And, because her power rises from her vulnerability as both a woman and a Jewish person, the book points to Rebecca as an example for all people—no matter their gender or beliefs—to live a humane, virtuous life.
Related Themes from Other Texts
The Vulnerability and Power of Women ThemeTracker
The Vulnerability and Power of Women Quotes in Ivanhoe
The figure of Rebecca might indeed have compared with the proudest beauties of England. […] Her form was exquisitely symmetrical, and was shewn to advantage by a sort of Eastern dress, which she wore according to the fashion of the females of her nation. Her turban of yellow silk suited well the darkness of her complexion. The brilliancy of her eyes, the superb arch of her eyebrows, her well-formed aquiline nose, her teeth as white as pearl and the profusion of her sable tresses[…]—all these constituted a combination of loveliness, which yielded not to the loveliest of the maidens who surrounded her. […] The feather of an ostrich, fastened in her turban by an agraffe set with brilliants, was another distinction of the beautiful Jewess, scoffed and sneered at by the proud dames who sat above her, but secretly envied by those who affected to deride them.
Joy to the fair! whose constant knight
Her favour fired to feats of might;
Unnoted shall she not remain
Where meet the bright and noble train;
Minstrel shall sing and herald tell—
‘Mark yonder maid of beauty well,
’Tis she for whose bright eyes was won
The listed field at Ascalon!
‘Note well her smile!—it edged the blade
Which fifty wives to widows made,
When, vain his strength and Mahound’s spell,
Iconium’s turban’d soldan fell.
See’st thou her locks, whose sunny glow
Half shows, half shades, her neck of snow?
Twines not of them one golden thread,
But for its sake a Paynim bled.’
Joy to the fair!—my name unknown,
Each deed, and all its praise, thine own;
Then, oh! Unbar this churlish gate,
The night-dew falls, the hour is late,
Inured to Syria’s glowing breath,
I feel the north breeze chill as death;
Let grateful love quell maiden shame,
And grant him bliss who brings thee fame.
“By the mass, thou meanest the fair Jewess,” said De Bracy.
“And if I do,” said Bois-Guilbert, “who shall gainsay me?”
“No one that I know,” said De Bracy, “unless it be your vow of celibacy, or a check of conscience for an intrigue with a Jewess.”
“For my vow,” said the Templar, “our grand master hath granted me a dispensation. And for my conscience, a man that has slain three hundred Saracens, need not reckon up every little failing[…].”
“Thou knowest best thine own privileges,” said De Bracy. “Yet, I would have sworn thy thought had been more on the old usurer’s money bags […].”
“I can admire both,” answered the Templar; “besides, the old Jew is but half prize. […] I must have something that I can term exclusively my own by this foray of ours, and I have fixed on the lovely Jewess as my peculiar prize.”
“Alas! fair Rowena,” returned De Bracy, “you are in the presence of your captive, not your jailor, and it is from your fair eyes that De Bracy must receive that doom which you fondly expect from him.”
“I know you not, sir,” said the lady, drawing herself up with all the pride of offended rank and beauty; “I know you not—and the insolent familiarity with which you apply to me the jargon of a troubadour, forms no apology for the violence of a robber.”
“To thyself, fair maid […] to thine own charms be ascribed what’er I have done which passed the respect due to her, whom I have chosen as queen of my heart and loadstar of my eyes.”
“I repeat to you, Sir Knight, that I know you not, and that no man wearing chain and spurs ought thus to intrude himself upon the presence of an unprotected lady.”
At this moment the door of the apartment flew open, and the Templar presented himself […]. “I have found thee,” he said to Rebecca; “thou shalt prove I will keep my word to share weal and woe with thee—There is but one path to safety […] up, and instantly follow me.”
“Alone,” answered Rebecca, “I will not follow thee […]—save my aged father—save this wounded knight.”
“A knight,” answered the Templar […], “a knight […] must encounter his fate […], and who recks how or where a Jew meets with his?”
“Savage warrior,” replied Rebecca, “rather will I perish in the flames than accept safety from thee!”
“Thou shalt not chuse, Rebecca—once didst thou foil me, but never mortal did so twice.”
So saying, he seized on the terrified maiden, who filled the air with her shrieks, and bore her out of the room in his arms […].
“Thus,” said Rebecca, “do men throw on fate the issue of their own wild passions. But I do forgive thee, Bois-Guilbert, though the author of my early death. There are noble things which cross over they powerful mind; but it is the garden of the sluggard, and the weeds have rushed up, and conspired to choak the fair and wholesome blossom.”
“Yet,” said the Templar, “I am, Rebecca, as thou hast spoken me, untaught, untamed—and proud, that, amidst a shoal of empty fools and crafty bigots, I have retained the pre-eminent fortitude that places me above them. I have been a child of battle from youth upward, high in my views, steady and inflexible in pursuing them. Such must I remain—proud, inflexible, and unchanging; and of this the world shall have proof.—But thou forgivest me, Rebecca?”
“As freely as ever victim forgave her executioner.”
