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Question
The character of King Richard I is presented in Ivanhoe not only with all his admirable qualities but also with his shortcomings. Elaborate with close reference to the text.
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Solution
King Richard I is a real, historical guy. He ruled England from 1189 to 1199 and led the Third Crusade of Christian knights to the Middle East to fight against the Muslims holding Palestine. He spent most of his life at war with various people – the French, the peoples of the Middle East, his own dad. With all this fighting, King Richard built up a reputation for chivalry – for living according to the honor codes of medieval knighthood – that has lasted for over eight centuries. (You can read more about the real Richard.) As a character in Ivanhoe, it's almost as if King Richard is two different people. There is that historical King Richard, the one we just described, who draws Ivanhoe out of England to fight by his side in the Crusades. That King Richard doesn't appear much in the book, because he's being held captive in Germany and then making his way back to England. (This really happened; he was held for ransom by Leopold V of Austria.) It's the absence of that King Richard that makes Ivanhoe possible, since it frees up his brother, Prince John, to bully the Saxons and generally make things more difficult for Ivanhoe and his family. King Richard's other face in the novel is that of the Black Knight. That guy loves jests and drinking songs and hanging around with jokers like Wamba and Friar Tuck. He doesn't always take a lot of initiative against the Normans, which is how he gets his other nickname, the Black Sluggard ("sluggard" means "lazy person"). For example, at the tournament at Ashby-de-la-Zouche, he doesn't really participate until he sees Ivanhoe about to get killed in a three-on-one fight with Athelstane, Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, and Brian de Bois-Guilbert.
Still, when the Black Knight does jump into a fight, his mighty arm seems invincible. Later, when he joins the outlaws of Sherwood to storm Torquilstone. As Rebecca comments, "it is fearful, yet magnificent, to behold how the arm and heart of one man can triumph over hundreds". This is a guy who knows how to kick back and have a good time, but he's also ready to battle evil one-on-one when he sees it. Scott points outright to this conflict between our ideal of the heroic King Richard and the reality of his poor performance on the home front. When Richard tells the outlaws of Sherwood his true identity, he settles in for a long party with the guys. He doesn't want to take back his throne and responsibilities as king. It takes the encouragement of Locksley (Robin Hood) and Ivanhoe for King Richard I to get a move on and put down his brother John's rebellion. King Richard I always comes off better in ballads and legends than he does in history books.
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RELATED QUESTIONS
Read the passage given below and answer the questions (a), (b) and (c) that follow :
(1) At the Literary Society’s meeting, Isola read out the letters written to her Granny Pheen, when she was but a little girl. They were from a very kind man – a complete stranger. Isola told us how these letters came to be written.
(2) When Granny Pheen was nine years old, her cat died. Heartbroken, sitting in the middle of the road, she was sobbing her heart out.
(3) A carriage, driving far too fast, came within a whisker of running her down. A very big man in a dark coat with a fur collar, jumped out, leaned over Pheen, and asked if he could help her. Granny Pheen said she was beyond help. Muffin, her cat, was dead.
(4) The man said, ‘Of course, Muffin’s not dead. You do know cats have nine lives, don’t you?’ When Pheen said yes, the man said, ‘Well, I happen to know your Muffin was only on her third life, so she has six lives left.’ Pheen asked how he knew. He said he always knew - cats would often appear in his mind and chat with him. Well, not in words, of course, but in pictures.
(5) He sat down on the road beside her and told her to keep still – very still. He would see if Muffin wanted to visit him. They sat in silence for several minutes, when suddenly the man grabbed Pheen’s hand.
(6) ‘Ah – yes! There she is! She’s being born this minute! In a mansion – in France. There’s a little boy petting her, he’s going to call her Solange. This Solange has great spirit, great verve – I can tell already! She is going to have a long, venturesome life.’
(7) Granny Pheen was so rapt by Muffin’s new fate that she stopped crying. The man said he would visit Solange every so often and find out how she was faring.
(8) He asked for Granny Pheen’s name and the name of the farm where she lived, got back into the carriage, and left.
(9) Absurd as all this sounds, Granny Pheen did receive eight long letters. Isola then read them out. They were all about Muffin’s life as the French cat − Solange. She was, apparently, something of a feline musketeer. She was no idle cat, lolling about on cushions, lapping up cream – she lived through one wild adventure after another – the only cat ever to be awarded the red rosette of the Legion of Honour.
(10) What a story this man had made up for Pheen – lively, witty, full of drama and suspense. We were enchanted, speechless at the reading. When it was over (and much applauded), I asked Isola if I could see the letters, and she handed them to me.
(11) The writer had signed his letters with a grand flourish :
VERY TRULY YOURS,
O.F. O’F. W.W.
It was highly possible that Isola had inherited eight letters written by Oscar Wilde, for who else could have had such a preposterous name as Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Willis Wilde.
Adapted from : The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society – By Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
(a) (i) Given below are four words and phrases. Find the words which have a similar meaning in the passage :[4]
(1) adventurous
(2) cat-like
(3) appreciated
(4) received something on someone’s death
(ii) For each of the words given below, write a sentence of at least ten words using the same word unchanged in form, but with a different meaning from that which it carries in the passage :[4]
(1) kind (line 2)
(2) mind (line 13)
(3) still (line 15)
(4) sounds (line 26)
(b) Answer the following questions in your own words as briefly as possible:
(i) Where did Isola get the letters from to read at the Literary Society’s meeting?[2]
(ii) Who consoled Granny Pheen when she was heart-broken? What did he say about Muffin’s lives?[2]
(iii) What did the man say when Granny Pheen asked him how he knew about cats’ lives?[2]
(iv) According to the man, what was Muffin’s new fate?[3]
(c) In not more than 100 words, summarise why the eight letters were a treasure to Granny Pheen. (Paragraphs 2 to 10). Failure to keep within the word limit will be penalised. You will be required to write the summary in the form of a connected passage in about 100 words.[8]
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