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Royal Beatings is a short story by Alice Munro. It originally appeared in The New Yorker in the 1977 March issue. In 1978, it was published by Macmillan of Canada as part of the book Who Do You Think You Are?, and became Munro's second collection of short stories to win the Governor General's Award. This book was also published under the name The Beggar Maid outside of Canada. Munro was nicknamed the Canadian Chekhov because her work, like the acclaimed Russian dramatist and writer of short fiction, is known for limited plot movement, an attention to detail and strong character development.

The entire compilation of short stories that make up Who Do You Think You Are? - ten in total - recount the journey of self-discovery that the protagonist, Rose, embarks on as an adult to answer this ominous question. In the opening story called Royal Beatings, Rose recalls when, as a twelve or thirteen year old, she received a legendary beating by her father. Although the topic (child abuse) is admittedly tragic, the tale is less of a social commentary and more of an examination of how parent-child relationships affect a person during their formative adolescent years. It further explores the mystery that shrouds a person’s accurate knowledge of self and others, especially when their true personalities are eclipsed by hearsay stories and role expectations.

Plot Summary
One Saturday, an adolescent Rose is left to help her stepmom, Flo, run the grocery and furniture repair store adjacent to their home. As their already strained relationship approaches the tipping point, an exasperated Flo threatens Rose because of her continual cheekiness, “You are going to get one Royal Beating.” After Rose talks back one too many times, Flo urges her husband - Rose’s biological father - to punish her. The narrative describes a theatrical ordeal that results in a conscience-stricken Flo bringing little sandwiches, ointment, and chocolate milk to Rose’s bedroom. Despite her stubborn desire to not indulge Flo’s sympathy, Rose loses self-control and eats everything. Some years later, an adult Rose listens to a radio interview with an elderly man from Hanratty, Ontario, whom she recalls from Flo’s constant stream of stories. Rose wishes she could converse with Flo about their past, but Flo is now in a nursing home where she has lost all ability to communicate, save for when she bit a nurse.

Characters
Rose - The adult protagonist of the larger short story collection, and the child subject of this particular story. “Rose had a need to picture things, to pursue absurdities, that was stronger than the need to stay out of trouble, and instead of taking this threat to heart she pondered: How is a beating royal?” Rose learns about the dysfunctional and abusive Tyde family through Flo’s colored retelling, and Rose ends this section saying, “Imagine!” Rose employs her imagination and the information she gains about town gossip, particularly from Flo, as a way to escape and process the difficulties in her own life - poverty, the death of her mother, a mostly-absent father, etc.

Flo - Rose’s stepmother, a young woman, much younger than Rose’s dad, who left her former life and occupation as a waitress in the city to help Rose’s widowed dad raise his two children. Flo sets the royal beating in motion by goading Rose, but she is also the one who pleads with her husband not to whip so hard, the one who rubs cream on Rose's back and brings her a special meal when everything is over.

Father - Rose’s biological father is a distant, quiet man who repairs furniture and recites poems. He is also king of the royal beatings but "his face, like his voice, is quite out of character."

Becky Tyde - A bold and deformed dwarf who regularly visits Flo's store and is the subject of horrible rumors that Flo imparts to Rose. She is alleged to have been impregnated by her abusive father, who was subsequently beaten to death by vengeful townsfolk, and represents Rose’s opinion of true suffering. She considers it a "royal beating".

Brian - Rose’s younger half-brother, whom she considers unfairly spoiled.

Style
About two-thirds of the way through the story, the narrative address subtly shifts from the third person to the second person, and the reader is directed "Suppose a Saturday, in spring." Munro continues in this manner to describe the climactic occasion of Rose's royal beating. Using this literary device, Munro allows her audience to use their imagination, as Rose often does, and embody the experience as if they were Rose.

External References
The line that Rose's father recites, which "astonishes" her and takes "her breath away," is spoken by the character Propspero from Shakespeare's The Tempest. "The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself. Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a wrack behind." (4.1)

Themes
Munro turns a fairly commonplace domestic incident - a father giving his daughter a hiding - into a platform for Rose to express and process complicated emotions, resulting in an imaginative retelling that seems unreliable. In his essay The Strange And The Familiar In Alice Munro, W. R. Martin explains: “In fact it [Rose’s story] becomes a complex fabric of inconsistencies, paradoxes and ironies, and yet, on closer examination, it discloses a comprehensive pattern, even if the pattern lies in the consistency of its inconsistencies.”

Another essay by Pilar Somacarrera, entitled Exploring the Impenetrability of Narrative, examines the linguistic techniques of Munro's early works and notes that "the boundaries between epistemic and deontic meaning are unclear, resulting in a pervasive narratorial ambiguity." In other words, Munro is noted for her use of linguistic modalities that communicate the speaker's desires and ideals, rather than empirical reality. This method of interpersonal and internal dialogue is particularly reflected in Flo's exaggerated story-telling and Rose's unspoken reflections about other people.