In Act III, Scene 2 of Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1 Prince Hal, the heir to the English throne, has been summoned by his father, the King, to answer for the dissolute life he has been leading. The King cites the Prince’s
inordinate and low desires,
Such poor, such bare, such lewd, such mean attempts,
Such barren pleasures, rude society
and wonders how such actions
Accompany the greatness of thy blood
And hold their level with thy princely heart.
Hal’s response is
I shall hereafter, my thrice gracious lord,
Be more myself.
I have always been fascinated by that reply. What can it mean to be more oneself? What, indeed, is the self anyway?
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I have an existentialist view of selfhood; that is, existence precedes essence—or, simply, you are what you do.(1) There is no pre-ordained “true you.” There is no set role to be followed, no fate that’s yours from birth.
The death of Queen Elizabeth II has been the occasion for numerous magazine and newspaper articles about her life and her role as Queen of England. And has led me to think about her selfhood and whether her true self was other than the role she played for 70 years.
Here is one view to consider:
“She meant reliability and stability,” said Kate Nattrass, 59, a health recruiter from Christchurch, New Zealand, which is a member of the Commonwealth.
But the queen did so at the cost of great personal sacrifice. “In many ways, she was a woman robbed of being able to be herself,” Ms. Nattrass said.(2)
This is a view that sees a conflict between the actions of the Queen and what may have been her true desires. The essential Elizabeth was suppressed to allow the ceremonial Elizabeth to thrive.
On the other hand, consider the words of 21-year-old Princess Elizabeth five years before ascending to the throne:
And as Tom McTague wrote in The Atlantic,
When the Queen devoted her whole life to the service of Britain’s “great imperial family,” she meant it and honored it.(3)
It was a life that at her birth she was not destined to lead. Through the abdication of her uncle, Edward VIII, and the death of her father, the role of Queen of England became hers, and while Elizabeth was not destined at birth to eventually become Queen of England, she completely embodied the role that fate thrust onto her.
Another writer at The Atlantic, Helen Lewis, pointed out that
everyone here knows that being royal is a bloody awful job. Elizabeth II didn’t choose it, and she did it anyway.(4)
(Or did she choose it by accepting it?)
“Duty,” “self-discipline,” “work ethic,” “sense of service” were some of the terms used by other writers to describe the qualities that were evident in the seventy years of the Queen’s reign.
She was, as Beth Thames, reminds us,
a woman who got up every day — yes, from a comfortable bed made up by other people — and did what had to be done. And she did that for 70 years. Duty called at 7:30 each morning and she answered day after day.(5)
*
Prince Hal had to be spurred by his father’s rebuke to be more himself. The self, in that hierarchal society, being independent of one’s will (indeed, the will— emotional, irrational—was a challenge to one’s true self) was aligned with destiny.
Since Elizabeth never had to be rebuked or shamed or otherwise spurred into being regal, was her life a challenge to the belief that existence precedes essence—in that her self seemed to be governed by essence of royalty? Or would it be truer to say that Elizabeth totally accepted destiny, making self and role identical? By accepting, indeed embracing her role, she can be said to have chosen her selfhood, which was displayed for seventy years as she
remained determinedly committed to the hallmark aloofness, formality and pageantry by which the monarchy has long sought to preserve the mystique that underpinned its existence and survival.(6)
***
(1) I discussed this many years ago in the following post: https://drnormalvision.blogspot.com/2011/08/ask-wrong-question.html
In another post, I posed the following thought experiment:
Charlie, walking down Main Street, spots a Baskin Robbins ice cream store ahead of him. “Boy, I’d like some chocolate chip ice cream,” he says to himself as he makes his way to the shop. “I really want some chocolate chip,” he says to himself again, as he takes a number and waits his turn. (You always have to wait on line at Baskin Robbins.) When the counterperson calls out number thirty-seven, Charlie steps forward. “I’ll have . . . er . . . that is I’d like . . . um . . . ok, two scoops of maple walnut ice cream with sprinkles.” Charlie finishes his ice cream cone and says to himself, “The maple walnut was good, but I really wanted chocolate chip.” Question: What did Charlie really want—maple walnut or chocolate chip?
https://drnormalvision.blogspot.com/2009/08/three-thought-experiments.html
(3) https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2022/09/queen-elizabeth-ii-death-global-legacy/671377/
(5) https://www.al.com/life/2022/09/when-duty-called-queen-elizabeth-always-answered.html
(6) https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/08/world/europe/queen-elizabeth-dead.html?searchResultPosition=31
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