Thursday, November 6, 2014

Hyacinth Bucket Reminds Me of My Mother






Take Hyacinth Bucket, make her meaner, strip off all any warmth, make her less femininely dressed in jean culottes and white sneakers, and far less inclusive of her poor family members---Hyacinth visits them weekly and you'll have my mother.

The spoiled snobbery, dinners, extreme neat freak attitudes, nervous neighbors--Elizabeth was often me dropping the cups of tea or other drinks, bossing people around, and clipped tone of voice all sum up my mother.  The third video reminds me of weirdness with my mother where if you dared to do a number 2 at her house, even as an adult, as soon as you got up to walk out, she would come screaming with a can of Lysol for daring to do something so human in her house.  However in real life unlike British TV land, Narcissists seem to get people to kowtow to them while when Hyacinth showed up, her neighbors, pastor and others ran for the hills. Most of them were nice normal characters I suppose and there were few co-narcissists. No one ever stood up to her and definitely were afraid of her. She definitely is a fictional narcissist.

"It is has been suggested that the personality of Hyacinth show signs of pathological, i.e., Narcissistic Personality Disorder, with her dedication to improving her social standing[1]. The pervasive pattern in the pathologically narcissist is; grandiose a sense of self-importance (in fantasy or behavior), shows arrogant and haughty behaviors or attitudes, has a sense of entitlement[2][3] . Furthermore, they can be controlling, blaming, self-absorbed, intolerant of others’ views, unaware of others' needs and of the effects of their behavior on others, and insistent that others see them as they wish to be seen. In the family they may also demand certain behavior from their children because they see the children as extensions of themselves, and need the children to represent them in the world in ways that meet the parents’ emotional needs.[4]"

I've seen every episode of Keeping Up Appearances, it's a great comedy and will make you laugh. I relate to Onslow and Daisy and Hyacinth's treatment of them. Most narcissists ostracize poorer family members completely but one can see her negative treatment of them in her social climbing. Hyacinth's henpecked husband Richard, would be seen as a classic milquetoast enabler though in his case he tries to protect others from the worse of Hyacinth's treatment. Sheridan, her son away at college, is an obvious spoiled "golden child".

4 comments:

  1. My mother also five, more concerned about apperances and all to ready to distance herself from realtives that do not live up to her expectations. I just watch Keeping and laugh and remember how much of a climber they both are

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes that is very common to all the narcs obsession with appearances. Maybe I should do a post on being a Cinderella expected to clean and dust everyday. One Hyacinth Bucket scene is where she yells at the tradesmen not to touch her walls, that is my mother. Social climbing comes first to narcs. They will name drop, and even exaggerate their wealth. You know how the characters go and visit houses they can't afford? That was my parents too. Once they even dragged me to tour a boarding school they never could afford in a million years.

    ReplyDelete
  3. She didn't go as far as boarding school with us five but she did marry a man much older who was a retired officer in the Air Force and also a business owner for the money, and the whole family thought it was just awful what she did, but not to her face. Then after the marriage she moved me mid-Junior year high school to a "better" school district and tried to sell it that it was for me. Then her and the Lt. Col bought a monstrosity of a house that was super ugly and gauche. To this day I cant stand the idea a pre-planned community because of all the bad memories and pretensions I associate with them both. I ended up with no friends in that school I was enrolled in, and no contacts I was just happy to be out of there, I am not even contacted for reunions and I am glad, even though it was a better district, those kids were entitled, shoplifting spoiled brats and a big joke.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ugh Preplanned communities are awful. I get the fits in the suburbs even. I'm too poor to live in suburbs but if I had money, there's no way I'd live in some cookie-cutter house where I have to drive 10 miles to go anywhere. Sounds like she did marry him for the money.

    ReplyDelete