Adaptation or escapism? The British Royals’ tribulations and the crisis of personal identity in Sue Townsend’s The Queen and I

In The Queen and I (1992), English writer Sue Townsend (1946-2014) satirically imagines the abolition of the British monarchy and the subsequent social, political and even personal trials generated by their new situation. This paper focuses on the hardships experienced by the royal family in their d...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inArs Aeterna Vol. 7; no. 2; pp. 44 - 64
Main Author Culea, Mihaela
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published De Gruyter Open 01.12.2015
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Summary:In The Queen and I (1992), English writer Sue Townsend (1946-2014) satirically imagines the abolition of the British monarchy and the subsequent social, political and even personal trials generated by their new situation. This paper focuses on the hardships experienced by the royal family in their demoted condition, with special focus on aspects related to personal identity, such as emotional remoteness, displacement, disputes over the reputation of the (royal) name, re-naming, falsifying one’s name and the invention of another identity, illness, escape mechanisms and struggles to adapt to a new life - all of these fictitious tribulations depicting the royal family in a state of crisis
ISSN:1337-9291
1337-9291
2450-8497
DOI:10.1515/aa-2015-0010