Editing Waverley (novel) (section)

===Heroines===
The literary critic Alexander Welsh suggests that Scott exhibits similar preoccupations within his own novels. The heroines of the ''Waverley'' series of novels have been divided into two types: the blonde and the brunette, along the lines of fairness and darkness that marks Shakespearean drama, but in a much more moderate form.<ref name="Welsh">Welsh, A. 1993. ''The Hero of the Waverley Novels''. Princeton: Princeton University Press</ref> Welsh writes:

<blockquote>The proper heroine of Scott is a blonde. Her role corresponds to that of the passive hero&nbsp;– whom, indeed, she marries at the end. She is eminently beautiful, and eminently prudent. Like the passive hero, she suffers in the thick of events but seldom moves them. The several dark heroines, no less beautiful, are less restrained from the pressure of their own feelings...They allow their feelings to dictate to their reason, and seem to symbolize passion itself.<ref name="Welsh"/></blockquote>

This is evident in ''Waverley''. Rose is eminently marriageable; Flora is eminently passionate. However, we should also note that Welsh is, first, establishing a typology, which in part is age-old, but is also reinforced throughout the Waverley Novels, second, that Scott, or his narrators, allow the female characters thoughts, feelings and passions that are often ignored or unacknowledged by the heroes, such as Waverley.

A different interpretation of character is provided by Merryn Williams.<ref>Williams, M. 1984. ''Women in the English Novel'', 1800-1900. London: Macmillan</ref> Recognising the passivity of the hero, she argues that Scott's women were thoroughly acceptable to nineteenth-century readers. They are&nbsp;– usually&nbsp;– morally stronger than men, but they do not defy them, and their self-sacrifice "to even the appearance of duty" has no limits. Thus, Flora will defy Waverley but not Fergus to any significant extent, and has some room to manoeuvre, even though limited, only after the latter's death.

Yet another view considers Flora to be the woman representing the past, while Rose symbolises a modern rational Scotland in the [[Acts of Union 1707|post-Union]] settlement.<ref name=EULWalterScott>{{Cite web |title=Walter Scott: Waverley |url=http://www.walterscott.lib.ed.ac.uk/works/novels/waverley.html |publisher=Edinburgh University Library |date=19 December 2011 |access-date=25 June 2013 }}</ref>