Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Ivanhoe, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Merits of Chivalry
Disguise and Discovery
Inheritance and Displacement
The Vulnerability and Power of Women
History vs. Romance
Summary
Analysis
As a servant leads the Palmer away from the hall, Oswald promises him a cup of good mead if he will share news from Palestine with the household servants. When the Palmer declines, Oswald orders the servant to put him in a servant’s stall, next to Isaac, rather than a better bedroom. Before he can do so, one of Rowena’s maids summons the Palmer to her chamber because she wants more information about Ivanhoe. The Palmer says only that when he met him, Ivanhoe was recovering from ill health, that he escaped persecution from the Norman-allied, and that he planned to return home soon. Rowena, the Palmer says, knows better than he what kind of reception Ivanhoe will receive when he arrives. She offers him a piece of gold, then dismisses him.
Oswald’s treatment of the Palmer emphasizes his lowly status; he has no power in the household, like the disowned and outcast Ivanhoe. This, in combination with his apparent knowledge of Ivanhoe’s movements, again strongly suggests that he might be Ivanhoe in disguise. His patience in the face of abuse and suffering suggests both the inherent strength of the oppressed Saxon and the resilience of the knight. Moreover, the readiness of Norman-allied individuals to persecute the Saxon Ivanhoe and the Saxon-sympathetic King Richard, even when they should have been focused on winning the Third Crusade, points to the invading Normans’ extreme abuse of power.
Themes
The servant takes the Palmer to a rustic but clean room between Gurth and Isaac. The Palmer falls asleep immediately. In the morning, he quietly sneaks into Isaac’s room, where he finds the moneylender muttering in his sleep about persecution. He prods Isaac awake with a staff, warning the old man that he overheard Sir Brian ordering his servants to follow Isaac, capture him, and turn him over to one of the closest Norman nobles. The Palmer offers to guide him safely to Sheffield, where he can bribe someone else to help him get to the tournament. Still protesting his poverty, Isaac accepts. The Palmer wakes Gurth, whispers some secret words in his ear, and persuades him to help them leave in secret.
Although the book largely portrays Isaac and Rebecca in a sympathetic light and critiques other characters for their antisemitic and prejudicial treatment of the two, it also subtly confirms negative stereotypes about Jewish people with its ongoing hints that Isaac lies about his wealth and tries to take advantage of others’ generosity through pretending to be poor and helpless. Still, it paints the Palmer in a good light for the ongoing generosity and concern he extends to Isaac.
Themes
The Palmer leads Isaac through the countryside with such urgency that Isaac occasionally fears betrayal. In an aside, Templeton explains a little about the situation of the Jewish people in this era: they were universally despised in part out of religious prejudice, and in part because they often made themselves very rich from lending money at punishing interest rates to the wealthy. As they were the only source of ready cash, nobles and even kings had few other options. Thus, the powerful often retaliated by persecuting and extorting money from Jewish people in their lands.
Ivanhoe captures the situation of Jewish people in medieval Europe fairly accurately. And it correctly blames both religious and social factors for medieval antisemitism. But it also perpetuates these same racist stereotypes in its quiet but ongoing suggestion that Jewish people deserved censure for overcharging their customers. Readers can usefully compare the book’s criticism of Isaac for taking money from the wealthy with the way it celebrates Locksley and his woodsmen-bandits for doing the same.
Themes
The Palmer and Isaac reach an oak tree that marks the extent of the Norman nobles’ properties and points out the road to Sheffield. Isaac realized the previous evening that the Palmer is a knight in disguise, and he wants to repay the man’s kindness. He writes a note in Hebrew and hands it to the Palmer, telling him to visit a moneylender in Leicester who will lend him a horse and armor for the tournament as repayment. If he has earned enough in the tournament, he can buy the equipment afterwards; if he loses, Isaac promises to cover the cost—although he’s certain the Palmer won’t lose.
The book associates the Palmer with an oak tree; because it has previously tied the oak to Cedric and his servants, this continues to suggest that the Palmer might really be Ivanhoe. Certainly, Isaac sees through at least part of the Palmer’s disguise, easily identifying him as a knight. This suggests that chivalry does have value to society, since it encourages people to behave in recognizable and recognizably pro-social ways (like helping Isaac with no hope of reward).
Themes
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