Analysis

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Alice Munro's 1977 short story "Royal Beatings," part of a collection of linked stories entitled The Beggar Maid, can be analyzed in terms of the question which Flo angrily asks Rose as tensions rise between the two: "Who do you think you are?" This question comes just prior to the most descriptive and brutal beating Rose receives from her father as a punishment for her backtalk and disrespect towards Flo.

The answer to this question, or rather the various ways the question informs both the characters' view of themselves and others, constructs a familial setting in which the authenticity of identity exists in the space between one's curated self and one's internal, private self. This tension between "selves" is evident in Rose's father as he works in his work-shed. She is not supposed to be listening at his door, but Rose does and hears him reciting lyrical words and bits of Shakespeare:

She could never ask him. The person who spoke these words and the person who spoke to her as her father were not the same, though they seemed to occupy the same space.

Similarly, it's as if Flo's entire personality is born from the battle between competing identities. She is prudish yet recounts stories which involve flashers and sexual attention. She burns with vindictiveness and a powerful rage against Rose, which is channeled through a display of meekness when interacting with Rose's father:

Now comes another voice of Flo's. Enriched, hurt, apologetic, it seems to have been manufactured on the spot. She is sorry to have called him from his work. Would never have done it if Rose was not driving her to distraction.

In fact, this very idea of "manufactured" speech seems central to one of Munro's main themes. Language, an obvious material in the construction of one's self and an avenue through which Flo's seminal question, who do you think you are, can be answered, is shown as an imperfect and misleading tool. Initially, when Rose tries to imagine what Flo means by a "royal beating," she "came up with a tree lined avenue a crowd of spectators . . . the blood came leaping out like banners." The description of the actual beating does not resemble this initial musing at all.

On a final note, it is interesting to consider that an alternative title for Munro's linked short stories was in fact: Who Do You Think You Are, furthering the idea of this question as an important theme for not only the story "Royal Beatings" but for the collection as a whole.

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