The Gypsy Trope as Catalyst: “Unmanly” Sensibility and the Reform of Masculinity in Guy Mannering

Abstract

This essay reexamines Walter Scott’s Guy Mannering by analyzing Scott’s Gypsy trope as a narrative device that mediates two intersecting crises of identity in the early nineteenth century: the erosion of traditional aristocracy under pressures of modernization and the formation of a reformed masculinity in the Age of Sensibility. Previous criticism has often read Meg Merrilies and her tribe through the lens of imperial discourse, emphasizing their exoticized resemblance to Eastern or colonial subjects. While this perspective highlights an important dimension of Scott’s Gypsy figures, it overlooks his concurrent portrayal of the Romani as “domestic others” whose proximity to Scottish society allowed them to serve as guardians of ancestral tradition and as agents in the restoration of Harry Bertram’s authority. Meg’s ambiguous gender expression unsettles rigid binaries of masculinity and femininity, exposing the protagonists’ “unmanly” sensibilities while catalyzing their transformation into men of feeling. Her mediating role between the domestic and the foreign underscores the cultural work Scott assigns to the Romani, who embody both continuity and disruption. However, the subversive potential of conservatism and gender fluidity is contained: Meg’s death and the dispersal of her tribe coincide with Ellangowan’s modernization, ensuring aristocratic continuity and reformed masculinity are preserved within stabilized boundaries. By situating the Romani at the intersection of national history and gender discourse, this essay argues that Scott mobilizes the Gypsy trope not merely as an emblem of cultural otherness but as a mechanism for preserving Scotland’s ancestral past while negotiating a masculinity adapted to a modernizing society.