Commoners’ Servility In Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror And The Light

Hilary Mantel has been the first female two-time winner of the Man Booker Prize.The Mirror and the Light is the final book of her Cromwell Trilogy.The analysis on commoners’ servility in the fiction can effectively expand the humanist dimension of studies available home and abroad,which focus on its narrative techniques,feminist perspectives and Cromwell’s modern spirit.By forming a system of optical symbols,the novel portrays the pre-Renaissance Tudor dynasty as a society full of servility,explores the manifestations and negative results of common people’s servility,the causes of servility and the forces that counter servility.It conveys Mantel’s humanistic reflection against commoners’ servility and the shackles of hegemony,providing a reference for contemporary society to eliminate the servile mind and promote people’s wellbeing.Firstly,characterization of commoners in the novel reveals signs and results of servility.The commoners of the Tudor dynasty in England,represented by Wriothesley,show deference to the upper class for transient interests,resulting in a lack of loyalty;the Putney masses accept an unequal social order that restricted their development;the revolting commoners of the “Pilgrimage for Grace,” misled by the rumours of nobility,prevent England from pursuing national independence.All these manifestations and results proves that commoners’ servility is deceptive and jeopardous.The source of its fraudulence actually lies in the political causes of commoners’ servility.The Spanish Emperor cultivates commoner’s conformity by controlling their basic psychological needs;the Pope imprisons commoners’ perceptions by monopolizing knowledge;the aristocracy controls the commoners’ judgement through the supremacy of lineage.These three hegemonic powers collectively disguise servility as subjectivity and produce commoners’ self-imprisoned way of thinking.Finally,to break through servility,the novel presents three innovative forces by reshaping history.The fictional monarch,Henry VIII attempts to promote loyalty and arouse the commoners’ national awareness;the reformers spread knowledge through education and Bible translations to release the commoners’ cognition;the commoner Cromwell successfully demonstrates the way to break free from dependent judgement by defying the supremacy of blood through personal practice.By establishing objective principles of patriotism,knowledge and practice,intellectuals from different classes altogether eliminate the disguise of commoners’ servility.Commoners’ servility in The Mirror and the Light is a state of mind that imprisons oneself and prevents national independence.The cause is not mere political oppression,but the confinement of mind resulting from hegemony and monopoly.Therefore,the way to overcome commoners’ servility is not to empower them with political rights,but to liberate their minds.Therefore,Mantel suggests contemporary people subvert the shackles of hegemony,combine national identity and revolutionary ideas with individual practice to form independent judgements,and promote personal as well as national development.