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
Waldemar Fitzurse spends the evening enticing all of Prince John’s followers with the inducements—from money to promises of power to threats of the wrath of King Richard—necessary to ensure their support for the upstart monarch when he confronts his brother and attempts to consolidate his power. Late that night, worn out and exhausted, he returns to the Castle of Ashby, where he encounters De Bracy, dressed up in green like an English yeoman.
Prince John, with no personal valor, justice, or leadership capabilities, has few qualifications for leading England, although he feels entitled to do so. In the same way, the Normans invade from France and then act as if it’s their right to overrun the country and take its wealth and resources. Without qualifications, John resorts to bribery and wheedling. Although at some points Fitzurse represents what little chivalry exists in John’s morally corrupt court, his desire for power overwhelms his better nature in moments like this—calling into question the power of chivalry as a social force.
Themes
De Bracy confides in Fitzurse that he plans to get himself a wife “after the manner of the tribe of Benjamin,” referring to a rather embellished version of a story from the Biblical book of Judges that Prior Aymer told the company the previous evening. In it, the Israelites kidnap hundreds of virgins to marry the young men of the tribe of Benjamin. De Bracy and Sir Brian plan to kidnap Rowena while disguised as Englishmen. Then, De Bracy will change his clothes and “rescue” Rowena from her captors, immediately marrying her.
De Bracy now adopts a disguise. Throughout the book, disguises tend to reveal the truth even as (or perhaps because) they obscure a person’s identity—in dressing up as a Saxon woodsman, Fitzurse shows himself to be greedy, selfish, and domineering. Wanting to marry Rowena from some combination of her beauty and her wealth, he plans to kidnap and force her to wed him.
Themes
Fitzurse warns De Bracy that Sir Brian may not relinquish the beauty so quickly, even if his Templar vows technically require a monk’s celibacy of him. And, he continues, Prince John can hardly afford to alienate important Saxon families and their supporters on the eve of conflict with King Richard. But De Bracy refuses to be dissuaded from his plan and he bids Fitzurse a hasty good night. Fitzurse mutters to himself about the difficulty of pursuing his own political agenda while assuaging such childish and impulsive men as De Bracy and Prince John.
Fitzurse creates dissent among the members of John’s court as he points out the ways in which each fails to act nobly; both Sir Brian and Prince John will look to their own interests before they support de Bracy’s attempt to steal himself a wife. It seems that the Norman brand of chivalry cares more about the appearance of virtue and deploying martial skill in the services of political ambition than in truly cultivating values like loyalty, generosity, justice, and protecting others.
Themes
