19
Moreover Talbot comes to represent national values. His sturdy, practical nature, for
example, contrasts with Waverley's wavering personality and his flighty dreams of the Chevalier
and his followers. The naming of Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, throws us back to Shakespeare, for
'valiant Talbot' is the brave warrior who has inherited the characteristics of the quintessential
English warrior, Henry V, whose son is a weak, feeble-minded monarch.
Shakespeare is particularly hard on Henry VI for his determination to marry for love, or
affection or desire rather than for political reasons and the furtherance of the state. Machiavellian
Prince Hal was much more forthright, declaring to Catherine, 'I love France so well I will not part
with a village of it, I will have it all mine.. (5.2.169-170). Union is here is actually annexation, the
result of England imposing its will over the conquered nation. This is brought out in the gender
roles: the seed of the virile Henry/England will be implanted in the womb of the fertile
Catherine/France.
In a similar fashion, I think it is mistaken to argue that the marriage or union in Waverley
fits easily within the framework of marriage or love or romance. As soon as you start to remove
the veneer of romance between Rose and Waverley, it becomes clear that their marriage is also
a political solution to a financial problem. Waverley's passion has never been directed towards
Rose as an object of desire, but only towards Flora, who has repeatedly rejected him. The
marriage is undoubtedly a fitting conclusion to a romance, but I would emphasise that my reading
of the novel's conclusion is that the marriage is distinctly loveless, thus making the novel
conclude on a very cynical or perhaps realistic note.
In addition, I would suggest that this reading requires us to reconsider Scott's political
allegiances, as the romance and the marriage are always linked to them. It has become a critical
commonplace to say that the marriage of Rose and Edward is a clear illustration of Scott's
unionist sympathies; that their marriage is a symbolic representation of what the union brought
about: from Scotland we move on to the prosperous United Kingdom. Such assumptions take for
granted that the marriage is a product of romance whereas as I am suggesting that it has little to
do with love. There is as little passion and choice in the union of Waverley and Rose as there is
between Prince Hal and Catherine. ..'I love France so well I will not part with a village of it, I will
have it all mine' is a formula which could well be applied to Scotland after 1746, as Waverley and
Talbot's investment in property testifies.
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: