Abstract
What initially shocked many people after hearing of the Princess Diana’s death was that on the day of their mother’s death, as Dorothy Rowe recalls ‘her sons had to show that they were good boys by putting on their formal suits, going to church and listening to a service where no mention was made of their mother even in the prayers. Sadly, this shows that the House of Windsor, like the Bourbons, the last of French royalty, had learned nothing and forgotten nothing’ (Guardian, Tuesday, 2 September 1997, p. 19). Later it seemed that this was in line with the Queen’s instruction that Diana’s name should not be mentioned in her presence.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
For some helpful introductions to the writings of Dorothy Rowe see, for instance, Depression (London: Brunner-Routledge, 2003); Beyond Fear (London: HarperCollins, 2011) and Wanting Everything: the Art of Happiness (London: HarperCollins, 2009).
For some helpful reflections upon relationships between fathers and sons see, for instance, Edward Goss’ classical study Fathers and Sons: A Study of Two Temperaments (London: Penguin, 1989)
Lewis Yablonsky, Fathers and Sons (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984)
David Susbold, ed., Fathers and Sons: An Anthology (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1992).
T. Benzie, ‘Diana as a Gay Icon’ in Ien Aug, ed., Planet Diana: Cultural Studies and Global Mourning (Kingswood, NSW, Research Centre in Intercommunal Studies, University of Western Sydney, 1997) has argued that her close friendship with prominent gay individuals like Elton John and Gianni Versace further reinforced her position in the lives of gay men as someone at least prepared to embrace difference. A reading of Diana’s life as one of empowerment rather than victimhood placed her as ‘a very modern gay icon’, moving beyond the traditional appeal of Judy Garland who as Gay Times noted, ‘although she always managed to come back, never fought back’ (August, 1998).
See also readings that relate to sexual politics in Beatrix Campbell, Diana: Princess of Wales: How Sexual Politics Shook the Monarchy (London: The Women’s Press, 1998).
For an illuminating discussion about the relationships of emotions and feelings and ways they have been identified within a Kantian ethical tradition making it difficult to explore the different levels of emotional life and experience see, for instance, David Boadella, Lifestreams (London: Routledge, 1987)
Stanley Kellerman, The Body Speaks Its Mind (New York: Simon and Schuster 1975); Somatic Reality (Berkeley: Centre Press, 1989)
Victor J. Seidler, Man Enough: Embodying Masculinities (London: Sage, 2000).
Some useful discussions of changing family values within different cultures and societies are offered by Judith Stacey, Brave New Families: Stories of Domestic Upheaval in Late Twentieth Century America (New York: Basic Books, 1990) and In the Name of the Family: Rethinking Family Values in the Postmodern Age (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1996).
For a biography of the Queen that places her reign in historical and cultural context and that explores the background to her relationship with Philip see Ben Pimlott, The Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth 11 (London: Harper Collins, 1997/2002, 2nd edn).
For the biography of Prince Charles that allows him to tell his side of the story of his marriage to Diana and also give some insight into his own upbringing and schooling, see Jonathan Dimbleby, The Prince of Wales (London, 1996).
For some interesting discussions of the ways in which young boys often have to deny their feelings in order to affirm their masculinities see for instance, Miriam Miedzian, Boys Will Be Boys (London: Virago, 1991). Reflecting upon the experience of the young Proust, Carol Gilligan reflects that it is a feature of patriarchal families that: ‘When the boy realizes that he cannot count on his mother’s love because she is acting on his father’s wishes, her love becomes untrustworthy’ (p. 83). She observes more generally in The Birth of Pleasure (New York: Vintage, Random House, 2003): It is difficult for young boys to read the world around them and show the sensitive sides of themselves. The fathers love their boys’ being ‘out there,’ but they also see this openness carries with it a vulnerability that they, the fathers, want to protect. The pleasure they know with their sons evokes memories of themselves at a time before a loss they experienced. Men’s conflicts around intimacy are tied to a history these fathers are coming to remember as they see it repeating in front of their own eyes, being played over again from the beginning. An often unrecognised and mutilated history, interrupted by gaps in memory, a loss of language – the signs of dissociation. Closeness and tenderness with their sons will bring them back into association with parts of themselves that they have hidden. The pain of remembering is that it brings them face-to-face with a loss that was behind them but now is in front of them as they step into the river again with their sons (p. 71).
For some fascinating discussion of how the Oedipus Complex becomes the dominant story of patriarchy and the ways that it can possibly be replaced by an alternative map of love as well as an interesting engagement with shifts in Freud’s own work and the losses involved when he frames his understandings through the Oedipus complex that becomes universalised, see Carol Gilligan, The Birth of Pleasure: A New Map of Love (New York: Vintage: Random House, 2003).
See also Lisa Appignanesis and John Forrester, Freud’s Women (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1992).
For some interesting reflections upon the changing nature of authority within Western cultures see, for instance, Richard Sennett, Authority (New York: W. W. Norton, 1993) and his more recent Respect: The Formation of Character in an Age of Inequality (London: Penguin Books, 2003)
Martin Jay, The Dialectic of Enlightenment (London: Heinemann, 1973).
Copyright information
© 2013 Victor Jeleniewski Seidler
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Seidler, V.J. (2013). Authority, Masculinities and Emotional Lives. In: Remembering Diana. Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230371903_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230371903_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-34016-3
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-37190-3
eBook Packages: Palgrave Media & Culture CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)