Studies in the Novel, March 22nd, 1998
Walter Scott's 'The Heart of Mid-lothian' has comic elements, although these have not been critically explored. The behavior of Dumbiedikes and Daddy Ratcliffe reflects carnivalesque patterns and dependence on laughter, joking, feasts, swearing and drinking. Jeanie Deans is partly content to live inside social conventions, yet she can also be seen as a heroine whose uniquely feminine experience provides unusual alternatives.
As Hardie informs Peter Pattieson in The Heart of Mid-lothian's opening chapter, the Tolbooth prison provides compelling evidence of "guilt, crime, imposture, folly, [and...
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