God Save the Queen
God Save the Queen:
Emotional Analysis of Queen Elizabeth’s Speech
By: Reed Bailey
On August 31, 1997, in the early hours, Princess Diana was rushed to a hospital in London where she was soon announced dead. This tragic event brought the world to its knees. Having such a young, well-loved woman die and leave the world so suddenly was proven more for some British citizens to handle. In this time of grief and sorrow the country looked to one person to give advice on how to handle the tragedy or at least just a bit of closure. Queen Elizabeth was nowhere to be found…until she was pulled out of hiding. After much convincing, the Queen finally gave a short, dry, televised speech. One might expect the Queen to be heartbroken, after losing the mother of her grandchildren and her daughter in law. The people of the world waited anxiously for a long, charismatic, emotional Eulogy. Instead, they received a heartless, robotic speech read directly from a screen behind the camera. Why, one might ask. Well it was no secret that the Queen envied Diana. The way Diana was so easily loved, appealed to the common people, and showed humanity were qualities Queen Elizabeth struggled to master and led to her removal from the spotlight. It is made evident, in several ways throughout the speech, that Her Majesty could care less about the death of her son’s wife and second choice as a lover. As reading the text, it is easy to realize that she is delivering a very generic, bland speech that could be used for anyone’s death after replacing the name. It’s almost as if she had someone write the speech for her. There are no personal recollections or adjectives she uses to describe Diana’s personality. The closest she comes is when she refers to Diana as an “exceptional and gifted human being.” Any mother or mother in law in that situation would have, at very least, added loving or wonderful or a more personal description to that sentence. Another factor is the fact that she refers to
Emotional Analysis of Queen Elizabeth’s Speech
By: Reed Bailey
On August 31, 1997, in the early hours, Princess Diana was rushed to a hospital in London where she was soon announced dead. This tragic event brought the world to its knees. Having such a young, well-loved woman die and leave the world so suddenly was proven more for some British citizens to handle. In this time of grief and sorrow the country looked to one person to give advice on how to handle the tragedy or at least just a bit of closure. Queen Elizabeth was nowhere to be found…until she was pulled out of hiding. After much convincing, the Queen finally gave a short, dry, televised speech. One might expect the Queen to be heartbroken, after losing the mother of her grandchildren and her daughter in law. The people of the world waited anxiously for a long, charismatic, emotional Eulogy. Instead, they received a heartless, robotic speech read directly from a screen behind the camera. Why, one might ask. Well it was no secret that the Queen envied Diana. The way Diana was so easily loved, appealed to the common people, and showed humanity were qualities Queen Elizabeth struggled to master and led to her removal from the spotlight. It is made evident, in several ways throughout the speech, that Her Majesty could care less about the death of her son’s wife and second choice as a lover. As reading the text, it is easy to realize that she is delivering a very generic, bland speech that could be used for anyone’s death after replacing the name. It’s almost as if she had someone write the speech for her. There are no personal recollections or adjectives she uses to describe Diana’s personality. The closest she comes is when she refers to Diana as an “exceptional and gifted human being.” Any mother or mother in law in that situation would have, at very least, added loving or wonderful or a more personal description to that sentence. Another factor is the fact that she refers to