The victimhood of Diana
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95 misread his preoccupation as rejection. Diana’s marriage to Prince Charles had acted as a catalyst for all the painful feelings from her childhood to re-emerge, namely her insecurity and her feelings of betrayal and isolation. In addition, Diana was still suffering from bulimia and her weight continued to fall drastically. Moreover, Diana’s obsession with Camilla continued, and despite Prince Charles’s repeated assurances that Camilla was no longer a part of his life, Diana refused to believe him. As Prince Charles and Diana began their joint official duties, it became apparent that the public now wanted Diana and not Prince Charles, and as a result she overshadowed Prince Charles, who later became jealous of the attention given to Diana. Moreover, Diana received little praise from Prince Charles and the rest of the Royal Family and it upset her. In addition, the imbalance between Diana’s empty life and Prince Charles’s busy one became more marked as he had a programme of official duties while she had none. Furthermore, Diana still failed to comprehend why Prince Charles was not able to spend more time with her. Worse still, no one seemed to take Diana seriously, and no one had thought out in detail what Diana would do. Meanwhile, the media interest in Diana remained intense to a degree which no one had foreseen, and its fascination with her increased daily. Diana was profoundly confused because she did not understand why the press was so interested in her, and she felt unworthy and inadequate of the attention aimed at her. Nevertheless, Diana began to increasingly look to the media for the reassurance she was not getting at home. Prince William’s birth came just over a month before their first wedding anniversary: Diana had had little time to accustom herself to being Princess of Wales and now she was the mother of the future King. It was perhaps the high point of Diana’s life as Princess of Wales as she had fulfilled her duty to the Crown by producing the next heir to the throne. However, it was not long until Diana’s postnatal depression started. By the time Prince William was barely a month old, Diana was hit with a depression even worse than what she had experienced during her honeymoon and pregnancy, and at the same time, Diana’s abandonment fears grew more acute and she panicked whenever Prince Charles did not arrive home on time. Prince Charles worried about her, but he did not understand post-natal depression, and no one in the Royal Family recognized either that or her bulimia. In addition, Diana’s obsession with Camilla continued, and despite Prince Charles’s denials, Diana persisted in accusing him of maintaining the affair. Regardless of the real state of the affair, 96 Diana’s imaginings had a profound impact on the relationship, and on her own behaviour, and she began to injure herself. However, as Diana endeavoured to come to terms with the realities of her marriage and royal life, there were moments when Diana sensed that she actually could cope and could make a positive contribution to the Royal Family and the wider nation. Nevertheless, despite her efforts, Diana did not receive any recognition from the Palace and she felt crushed. Furthermore, Prince Charles’s jealousy of Diana’s huge appeal to the crowds grew, and it was to become an increasingly divisive factor in their relationship. Moreover, Diana had become fascinated by the development of her own image in the pages of the British tabloids and she reviewed them daily. The consciousness that she was a real success boosted Diana’s fragile confidence. The fact that Diana outshone her husband in their public lives was driving the couple apart. Furthermore, Prince Charles also resented Diana because she really enjoyed her duties, whereas for him his duties were something he had to do. By 1986, Diana had started having affairs and Prince Charles had revived his relationship with Camilla. Moreover, by 1987, the marriage between Prince Charles and Diana was dying, and the main concern of their staff was to conceal it from the public. By then Prince Charles had already mentally and physically withdrawn himself from Diana, and it had become increasingly difficult for him to bear her presence. However, a sort of truce between the couple was agreed on: Prince Charles and Diana were to continue with separate but discreet social lives, while working harder to present a united front by taking on more joint engagements. Nevertheless, they showed little interest in each other’s activities. Furthermore, Diana still outshined Prince Charles on every public occasion they shared, and the resulting jealousy that Prince Charles felt about Diana’s success with the public, and the lack of recognition he extended to her as a result was to be one of the main causes of the failure of the marriage. By June 1991, Diana found the mere presence of Prince Charles upsetting and disturbing, while Prince Charles viewed Diana with indifference that was tinged with dislike, and the divide between them became too wide to hide for the sake of their public image. As a result, they led separate lives as much as was possible and only joined their forces to maintain a façade of unity. It was during that summer that Diana decided to cooperate with Andrew Morton, because she was disappointed that the media accepted what she believed to be a false rapprochement between herself and Prince 97 Charles and because they were unwilling to identify Camilla as the Prince’s lover. Furthermore, Diana wanted to expose the sham of her marriage and her role in the Royal Family. However, even Diana had underestimated the effects of the Morton book. Nevertheless, it created widespread sympathy for Diana. By the autumn of 1992, Prince Charles and Diana were each consulting lawyers, and on 25 November, Prince Charles told Diana of his decision to legally separate from her to which Diana readily agreed. In the final negotiations with Prince Charles Diana got almost everything she wanted. On December 9, 1992, Prime Minister John Major announced the formal separation of the Prince Charles and Diana in the House of Commons. During the first year of her separation from Prince Charles, Diana came to realize that rather than having the freedom she had hoped to gain from the separation, she was more constrained than she had ever been. In addition, she was lonely. Furthermore, the media interest in Diana continued, and even though they were separated, the media war between Diana and Prince Charles continued. Moreover, Diana was becoming increasingly resentful over her lack of a private life and the demands made on her by her public role, and, as a result, she withdrew from public life. In addition, Diana dispensed with her personal protection. Since Morton’s book, Prince Charles’s camp had been planning a riposte, which was to be an interview and an authorized biography of Prince Charles by Jonathan Dimbleby. However, the most memorable part of that interview was Prince Charles’s admission that he had not been faithful to Diana. As a result, Diana started to seriously think about doing her own television interview in response, and agreed to be interviewed by Martin Bashir on the BBC’s Panorama. Retrospectively, the most important single factor that had shaped the latter years of the marriage of Prince Charles and Diana was their decision to involve the media in their lives: had it not been for Morton’s book, Prince Charles would not have spoken to Dimbleby, and had it not been for Dimbleby, Diana would not have agreed to her Panorama interview, and together these factors drove the couple to a point which they could not return from. 98 Consequently, not long after Diana’s Panorama interview, the Queen requested that Diana and Prince Charles divorce. Nevertheless, negotiations between Prince Charles’s and Diana’s lawyers proceeded slowly, and on July 4, Prince Charles presented Diana with his settlement offer. Diana formally agreed to the terms just four days later. Six weeks later, on 28 August 1996, their marriage was dissolved. Both Prince Charles and Diana were profoundly sad, although the divorce was the right thing to do for the monarchy as well as the couple themselves and the boys. After the divorce, Diana was still lonely, but she no longer felt resentful of Camilla. In addition, the relations between Diana and Prince Charles became less strained during the months that followed their divorce, as Diana learned how to love Prince Charles as a friend and as an adult. Diana died at the age of 36 on Sunday 31 August 1997 in Paris. Her death resulted from a high-speed car accident. The accident in question took place just before midnight on Saturday 30 August and afterwards Diana was taken to hospital, where she was later declared dead. In the same way as no one had known what to do with her when she was alive, no one knew what to do with her when she died. since this was the first time the Royal Family had to decide how to act in the case of the sudden death of a divorced Princess of Wales, and there was some confusion as to how Diana should be treated. However, there was full agreement that she must be accorded full royal status, and as it became apparent that only a state funeral would satisfy the public, plans for the funeral had to be made in a hurry as there were no plans for the funeral made in advance. Nevertheless, the Queen saw the death of Diana primarily as a family tragedy and because of that she thought that it should be dealt with in private, and, as a result, the Royal Family spent their time in seclusion at Balmoral. Because of their decision to stay at Balmoral, the Royal Family stayed mostly unaware of the public hysteria that was growing in London. Nonetheless, the Queen had to yield to the pressure of the people and order the Union Jack to be flown at half-mast until she was in residence, and then again put at half-mast on Saturday, the day of the funeral, where it stayed until midnight on Sunday. In addition, on Friday 5 September, the eve of the funeral, the Royal Family flew to London, and on the same evening, the Queen delivered a heartfelt speech addressing Diana’s death. Furthermore, the Royal Family showed that they too shared in the grief of the people by walking out of the palace gates to socialise with the people gathered outside and to look at all the flowers, candles, and messages that people had left outside the palaces in remembrance of Diana: The Queen and Prince Philip did this in front of Buckingham Palace, while Prince Charles and the boys, Princes William and 99 Harry, did it at Kensington Palace. The funeral was held on Saturday 6 September in Westminster Abbey and televised internationally. The most famous moment of the whole funeral was Diana’s brother’s speech, which was addressed to Diana, and in part could be seen as being directed to the press and criticising the Royal Family and its traditions. After the funeral Diana’s coffin was taken to Althorp, where she was buried. A lot has happened in the twenty years since Diana’s death. Prince Charles has continued his relationship with Camilla and married her with the Queen’s blessing. Prince William is also now married, but as opposed to his parents, he had a long, serious relationship with Catherine before they even got engaged. They also lived together before they were married. In addition, steps were taken to protect Catherine from the press even before her engagement to Prince William, and within days of the engagement, Prince William asked his office to inform the media that there would be zero-tolerance if someone were to invade their privacy now or in the future. Furthermore, Catherine was gradually introduced to the royal way of life. All of this was done because Prince William does not want to make the same mistakes his parents did. He and Catherine also work better as a team than Prince Charles and Diana ever did, and Prince Charles is proud of Catherine in a way Prince Charles rarely was of Diana. Moreover, at the time of writing, Prince Harry is in a relationship with Meghan Markle, a fact that he confirmed in a press statement that he issued after it had been leaked to the that they were in a relationship, which was something that had rarely been done before. The statement also asked that the press would leave Meghan Markle and her family and friends be in peace. Overall, it seems like the boys have learned from their mother’s experience and that they are determined not to let history repeat itself. As stated in the beginning of this thesis, there is an abundance of material on Diana available. However, the quality of them varies to a great degree and is considerably affected by the views of the person who is behind the data, which made the choice of the biographies used the most important factor in the process, because depending on what biographies are chosen it might be possible to argue whichever side chosen: it is just as possible to say that Diana might have been the passive victim when it comes to the Royal Family as it is to argue that she herself played an active role in her own victimization depending on the choice of material. Nevertheless, this does not mean 100 that whatever is argued is true, and because of this the biographies used in this thesis range from the objective to the subjective so that all sides of the argument are taken into consideration and a comprehensive discussion on the way Diana may have been a victim can be constructed. In addition, the fact that several other biographies besides ones on Diana were consulted and in some cases also used as a reference, further adds to the comprehensiveness of the research. However, this thesis does not discuss everything that relates to its topic, but it does offer an overall portrayal of the instances that are of greatest importance. Even though the victim aspect of Diana’s life in connection to the Royal Family is widely discussed in this thesis, there still remains a lot to research on Diana and the way she may have been a victim of the Royal Family and Prince Charles. The fact that this year marks the 20 th anniversary of Diana’s death and that there still is persistent interest in royal families even today makes this thesis relevant in that the royals are a topic that is written about weekly, if not daily. In addition, as this year is the 20 th anniversary of Diana’s death, Diana herself is mentioned in the papers quite often, and not just in connection to her boys, Princes William and Harry, as was the case for a long time. The life of Diana has been and still is of interest even twenty years after her death, because she was and still is a prominent cultural icon in British culture, especially now. 101 References Bradford, S. (2007). Diana. London: Penguin Books. Bradford, S. (2012). Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Our Times. London: Penguin Books Ltd. Brown, T. (2008). The Diana Chronicles. New York: Anchor Books. Collins. (n.d.). "victim". Retrieved July 31, 2017, from Collins Dictionary: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/victim Dignan, J. (2004). Victims, victimization and victimology. In J. Dignan, Understanding Victims And Restorative Justice (pp. 13 - 40). Maidenhead: Open University Press. Dussich, J. P. (2006, November). 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Retrieved April 11, 2017, from The official website of the British Royal Family: https://www.royal.uk/the-duke-of-cambridge Tominey, C. (2016, October 31). His Majesty's pleasure: Prince Harry secretly dating US TV star Meghan Markle. Retrieved June 6, 2017, from Express: News: UK: http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/726701/prince-harry-meghan-markle-suits-actress-girlfriend- royal-family-relationship-secret-lover Wales, C. P., & Spencer, D. (1981, February 24). Engagement interview. (BBC, Interviewer) Yüklə 0,92 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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