The "Heart" of Midlothian: Jeanie Deans as Narrator

The “Heart” of Midlothian:zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONML Jeanie Deans as Narrator MAR Y ANNE SCHOFIELD Sir Walter Scott historically has been thought of as a man’s novelist. Twentieth-century critics from Lukacs and Daiches to Brown, Fleishman, and Hart have discussed and celebrated his contribution to the novel in terms culturally defined as “masculine”: that is, the nature of the hero, the meaning and/or futility of history, the evolution of society, and theories of law and justice.1 Further, Scott has been examined in terms of his rhetorical strategies involving historical fiction, both public and private history— another structure that is conceived of as male terri­ tory. Needless to say, little criticism has been directed to the feminine/ feminist aspect of a Scott novel.2 Susan Morgan, as one exception, exam­ ines Jeanie Deans, finding her to be “the first peasant heroine in British fiction.”3 Others, however, view her only as a secondary, critical issue when discussing the novel because, at the simplest level, the Waverly novels are about heroes. Is it possible, one must ask, for a hero to be feminine? Why did Scott present heroic action dramatized through the adventures of a heroine? Myra Jehlen provides a framework from which to examine these femi­ nine issues in claiming that the “interior” tensions of the novel “whether lived by man or woman [are] female.”4 In other words, an examination of Jeanie Deans provides a study of the “other,” non-masculine, nonassertive , imaginative side of Scott. Rather than merely labeling The 153 154 / KJIHGFEDCBA S C H O F I E L D fedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Heart ofMidlothian “unique” (a critical stance frequently taken) because Jeanie Deans is Scott’s only female protagonist, criticism should seri­ ously examine Scott’s use of her in this novel. Why did he make Jeanie Deans his spokesperson? Is Scott rejecting the masculine notions of the heroic associated with the Waverly heroes in favor of a different set of values associated with the feminine view? Is he truly concerned with the “heart” and the emotional issues that the female story raises? Clearly one cannot discount the masculine reading of the novel provided by noted Scott critics; yet a revisionist reading is necessary, if only to try and make sense of the uniqueness of Jeanie Deans’s position in the Scott canon. One of the most frequently noted critical issues in Scott criticism is his narrative method. His “layering” technique has been duly examined, with Stein, perhaps, considering the issue most seriously, noting Scott’s “elab­ orate prefatorial apparatus”5 and concluding that “it can be argued that the heavy editorial bracings of the Waverly novels constitute a defensive structure, which does not simply ‘guide’ but limits and excludes potential readings in the process of shaping our response.”61 would argue that the narrative layers are so ordered in The Heart of Midlothian as to under­ score and direct our attention to the unique, almost iconoclastic position Jeanie Deans holds in the story-telling of the novel, thus allowing Scott to explore the internal, non-masculine side of his creative self through her efforts. What we are presented with in The Heart of Midlothian is a feminine view of history. Though Scott tries his hand at such a feminization, he is unable to sustain it. He thus encloses the “female story” of Effie and Madge —a tale of seduction and betrayal, which is at the “heart” of the novel —within several layers of male narratives and controlling forms, and particularly within that of “the law,” an openly acknowledged male institution. These layers of the fable ultimately raise cogent issues about the very nature of fiction itself—who becomes the more truthful story­ teller: the male or the female, in the course of the fiction. Thus to investigate Scott’s historical, narrative feminism is to examine the very liminality of fiction and the process by which this fiction is created. Is it possible, Scott questions, to address the non-masculine, non-heroic virtues in fiction? To explore and present intuitive, nonrational sides of the self? To present these views as the fiction? In an attempt to answer these and similar questions, Scott validates an even more...