The Castle as a Chronotope in Waverly

INTRODUCTION

“On the opposite bank of the river, and partially surrounded by a winding of its stream, stood a large and massive castle, the half-ruined turrets of which were glittering in the first rays of sun . . . a broad white ensign, which floated from another tower, announced that the garrison was held by the insurgent adherents of the house of Stuart” (Waverly, 283).

This description belongs in medieval Ivanhoe, not a novel about a Scottish rebellion in 1745, so why does Scott emphasise the antediluvian nature of these battlements of yore? Sir Walter Scott’s Waverly can be said to be an attempt to portray universal “truths” that were shared with many of his socio-economic class. One of those “truths” he wished to impart was the notion that the English must rid themselves of the notion of landed capital and prepare for the new form of industrial capital. Scott uses the image of the castle to represent Medieval Capitalism, and although initially romanticising ...