Language and style

The language employed in the speech “Royal Bodies” by Hilary Mantel is rather complex. As the speech is particularly addressed to intellectuals from the London Review of Books lecture at the British Museum, Mantel avoids using simple language and embellishes her speech with a variety of linguistic and stylistic techniques, some of which we outline below. In what follows, we will look at Hilary Mantel’s style and the way it was created with the help of linguistic and stylistic devices.

Choice of words

Mantel chooses to employ many words which belong to the fashion industry. She compares Kate Middleton to a “jointed doll” (l. 17) and a “shop-window mannequin” (l. 19) because she wants to suggest that Kate is a royal body created by the British monarchy because of her beauty and perfection. When she talks about Marie Antoinette (the last queen of France), Mantel employs words such as “frocks” (l. 30) – which means “gowns” – “fabrics” (l. 36), “designed” (l. 44) or “gloss-varnished” (ll. 47-48). When she mentions Prince Charles, Mantel talks about “the tailor’s chalk lines” (l. 157) and “unsecured seams” (l. 158). Through the choice of words, Mantel suggests that the royal members of monarchy are nothing more than artificial bodies carefully prepared and dressed so as the public can admire them.

Similes

Through a few similes, Hilary Mantel manages to build realistic images when it comes to presenting the way in which she sees the British royal family. First, she states that Kate Middleton is “like a nicely brought up young lady” (l. 54), who was “designed to breed in some manners” (l.53). Another simile is employed when she compares Marie Antoinette to Lady Diana: “… was a gliding, smiling disaster, much like Diana in another time and another country” (ll. 40-43). Then, when she talks about the irony of peo...