The ‘Distinction of the Beautiful Jewess’: Rebecca of Ivanhoe and Walter Scott's Marking of the jewish Woman

Abstract

In Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, the character of Rebecca refuses to be circumscribed by the discourses of orientialism, anti-semitism and idealism. Rebecca's specifically Jewish female sexuality escapes the binary oppositions of East/West, past/present, Christian/alien, subject/object, and pure/tainted that would seek to contain her. Jewish female desire creates an instability in Scott's text that is only temporarily resolved through Rebecca's expulsion. This article argues that Scott uses cultural markers such as a yellow turban, a diamond earring and a silver casket in order to render the Jewish woman reliably visible in an attempt to relieve the tension created by a character who defies categories and conventions.