Ivanhoe is, first and foremost, a historical romance: Above all else, it is an adventure story, not a

painstaking attempt to recreate another era with perfect accuracy.The novel is occasionally quite
critical of King Richard, who seems to love adventure more than he loves the well-being of his
subjects. This criticism did not match the typical idealized, romantic view of Richard the Lion-
Hearted that was popular when Scott wrote the book, and yet it accurately echoes the way King
Richard is often judged by historians today. A socially divided nation whose problems are
aggravated by an absent king (Richard) and a Saxon lord (Cedric) who has disinherited his son
(Ivanhoe) for being loyal to a Norman monarch (Richard). This situation sets the stage for the
return of Richard and for the capacity of Ivanhoe to herald a new kind of relationship between
Saxon and Norman. The introduction of Isaac and Rebecca introduces a third cultural element to
the conflict between the Saxons and the Normans. In the religiously charged atmosphere of
twelfth-century England, European Jews are in a terrible position;

Scott, writing 700 years after the time of his story, is not afflicted by the same prejudices as his
characters; at least part of his project with Ivanhoe is to present a sympathetic portrait of his
Jewish characters. because of medieval social prejudice, it would have been impossible for a
Christian knight to marry a Jew.

He also acknowledged that Rebecca was the character most deserving of Ivanhoe's love, but
wrote that in life, the people who deserve the most do not always get what they deserve.

 The enigmatic group of honorable thieves who kidnap Gurth in this section represent the
reader's first glimpse of Robin Hood's merry men, who make an extended cameo later in the
book. Gurth's quarterstaff duel with the Miller is quite humorous.

John has a plan to marry Rowena to de Bracy, but de Bracy is impatient; he has concocted a
plan to kidnap her and her party as they ride home from Ashby. Fitzurse thinks that he is a fool
and attempts unsuccessfully to dissuade him from his endeavor.

 the three stages of Ivanhoe revolve around a particular adventure or quest: The first involves the
tournament at Ashby-de-la-Zouche, the second involves the captivity at Torquilstone, and the
third involves Rebecca's trial at Templestowe, the stronghold of the Knights-Templars.

The character of Cedric undergoes some interesting augmentation at the beginning of Chapter
18, when Scott describes his anxiety after Ivanhoe is wounded: This is the first
sign we have that Cedric cares at all about his disinherited son.

Even though Cedric loves Ivanhoe (as we see in this chapter) and respects King Richard, he
cannot abide by Norman rule, and he cannot abide by his son's acceptance of a
Norman king.

Both de Bois-Guilbert and de Bracy experience strangely humanizing moments while trying to
pressure women into submitting to them. Rowena's tears move de Bracy to a
strange moment of sympathy and uncertainty, while Rebecca's threat to leap of
the parapet if de Bois-Guilbert tries to rape her moves him to a kind of amazed
admiration.

 Ivanhoe is actually fairly unimportant to much of the novel's action; he is never really developed
as a character, but simply treated as the highest flower of chivalry, and we almost
never see events from his perspective. His love affair with Rowena is a
secondary plot theme at best, and the most affecting thing about Ivanhoe is the
fact that Rebecca loves him--and that is affecting because we care about
Rebecca, not because we care about Ivanhoe.

Ivanhoe's importance, and the reason that he is the title character of the novel, is not so much in
his heroic affect on the story (in that sense, King Richard is the real hero of the
book), but rather on his symbolic role in representing the tensions between the
 Saxons and the Normans. The third phase of the novel, centering around
Rebecca's captivity and trial at Templestowe, is also the most loosely organized;
Scott builds gradually to the novel's climactic scene, with many of his main
characters scattered in various locations rather than concentrated in the same
place, as was the case at Ashby-de-la-Zouche and Torquilstone Castle.
However, the evocation of the Order of the Templars at Templestowe provides an
interesting new setting for the book.

Scott's portrayal of the Templar order as a den of cunning, manipulation, and greed therefore
probably owes more to the conditions of Scott's own time than to the facts of
history. Regardless, Templestowe serves its purpose in Ivanhoe as a hive of
danger and villainy.

But for a king, the matter of personal behavior requires far more temperance than this reckless
code can comprehend. Ivanhoe is presented throughout the book as the epitome
of the chivalric code, but in fact Richard perhaps embodies it even more
successfully than Ivanhoe. 

To readers raised on conventional hero stories, the conclusion of Ivanhoe is very peculiar
indeed. The beginning of the scene of Rebecca's trial-by-combat builds tension in
a very familiar way, as the crowd waits to see whether a hero will arrive to save
her, and de Bois-Guilbert begins to despair. At last, a heroic knight charges onto
the scene to rescue Rebecca. This is where things become bizarre: When the
combat begins, the hero is so tired from hurrying to the scene that he actually
loses the fight, only to find himself suddenly victorious when his enemy
spontaneously dies. as it often seems throughout the story,Ivanhoe is more a
product of the time during which it was written (1819) than the time during which
it is set (1194).

To Romantic-era readers, the scene of de Bois-Guilbert falling dead from his own conflicting
inner passions (love of Rebecca, hatred of Ivanhoe, a desire to save his
own life but also to save Rebecca's) may have seemed very affecting; in
any case, it confirms the view that, apart from Rebecca, Brian de Bois-
Guilbert is by far the most nuanced character in Ivanhoe.

No other character can be said to experience any development during the course of the story,
but de Bois-Guilbert goes from being a stock villain to being an object of
at least some sympathy because of his admirable love of Rebecca. 

: Ivanhoe marries Rowena, despite no compelling development of their romance throughout the
book, and Rebecca is forced to withdraw.

The other bizarre occurrence in this section is the reappearance of Athelstane, alive and well
after having escaped from his own coffin.  he may have needed
Athelstane alive in order to persuade Cedric to bless the wedding of
Ivanhoe and Rowena.

 Ivanhoe, in contrast to Cedric, represents the model of a Saxon who can participate in, respect,
and be rewarded by Norman society; he is not degraded by the Normans,
but rather wins glory, favor, and privilege from the Norman king. He is not
a servant of the Normans, but neither is he their enemy. As the tensions
between the Saxons and the Normans play out throughout the novel,
Ivanhoe is the only character who exists in both worlds; it is clear that
Scott sees him as the future of England, and that fact--far more than his
actual deeds in the book--places his name on the title page. After all,
 Ivanhoe is presented as the hero of a book in which he is inactive with an
injury .

And yet, because of his position as a Saxon fully and successfully acclimated to the Norman
world, he is still the most important figure in the book.