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« on: June 16, 2006, 02:25:18 PM »
While I don't "dislike" Sissi I must say that were I her child I would probably kill myself!
(Whooops, Hello Rudolf!)
To be honest I just don't understand the woman. Her beauty was stunning, still is in the pictures that have come down to us, and beauty is an incredibly powerful thing, but the poor child seems to have been a case of arrested development.
She never did learn to see herself in other people it seems.
Considering that they shared many views and personality traits she could have been such a help and support for her son but no, she ignored the boy quite literally to death!
She sniped at her daughter-in-law when she might have shown support in that quarter.
Her relations with her daughters veered between indifference and smothering favoritism.
I have no doubt that court was stultifying and at a time when personal naturalness was held in such low esteem there would have been almost no place at all where Sissi could simply let her miles of hair down and be herself while in Vienna.
I guess my problem is that she was such a basically venal woman. Look at Alexandra of Russia, she was shy, she was overwhelmed by a backstabbing court and a mother in law who, given an inch could be assured to take a mile, yet Alexandra reacted in a grown up way.
She attacked her new role as a mother head on and hewed to the ideal of creating a close and warm place within her family. She strove to share her interior world with her loved ones.
Sissi froze those who most needed her out. I suppose the difference is that Alexandra married as a woman who had had experience of suffering and overcoming painful situations by searching within. Sissi was simply a child who developed a crush on a picture book emperor and went headlong into a hothouse atmosphere before she'd even developed a "within".
So, why do people love Sissi? Probably because the glamour of position and the image of eternal beauty give her the aura of a glorious cast out angel who floated a foot above the mire and tragedy that surrounded her. Unfortunately she was a human woman whose refusal to take an active role in the lives of those dependent upon her is what led to the tragedy.
That, no doubt has a certain glamour too.