<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p> 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<sup>1</sup> 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</p></abstract>

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 paper1 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

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

Vasile Alecsandri University of Bacău, Romania

Ars Aeterna

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

In The Queen and I (1992), English writer Sue Townsend (1946-2014) satirically imagines the abolition of the British monarchy and the subsequent social,...

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

Published Online: Dec 11, 2015

Page range: 44 - 64

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/aa-2015-0010

© 2015

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.