Liliuokalani’s Humorous, Yet Revealing, Observations Regarding Some Truths about British Culture circa late-19th Century

Liliuokalani’s Humorous, Yet Revealing, Observations Regarding Some Truths about British Culture circa late-19^th Century

While Hawaii’s Story By Hawaii’s Queen acts as a most illuminating account into the unfortunate demise of the great nation of Hawaii, it seems only fair that one notes the few humorous admissions the pop up during Liliuokalani’s memoir.  It is also quite curious that several of these revelations revolve around Liliuokalani’s preconceptions and subsequent observations during her trip to British Isles.

One of these observations occurs during an outing to Richmond, after the Jubilee celebration of Queen Victoria (165).  During their evening stay in “this pleasant place,” Liliuokalani and Queen Kapiolani are “conducted to a house exhibited to us as the type of an English inn” (165).  However, this inn hardly lives up to the standards of the “glorious descriptions” that Liliuokalani had “read [about] from her earliest days…where the pleasures of the chase culminated, and to whose doors the trophies of hunters were brought” (165).  Some readers might classify these revelations as proof of the spoiled nature of the last Hawaiian sovereign.  However, it seems much more realistic that this is nothing more than Liliuokalani’s disappointment as she realizes she has been mislead as to the true nature of the “inns of which the English novelists” scrawl within their texts, reminiscent of the disappointment a child feels after they learn that Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny aren’t real; sorry if I ruined that for anyone in our section (165).

The next day as the Liliuokalani and Queen Kapiolani continue their journey up the Thames, Liliuokalani witnesses, what is to her, a most bizarre incident:

            “But there was one phase of the exhibition which excited my attention, not to say surprise an wonder.  This was the indifference of the men in the smaller boats, who lounged in the stern, cigar in mouth, book or paper in hand, while the poor girls with poles exerted their strength to the utmost to shove, their boats along the waters of the lock.  Men smoking or reading while the women were doing all the work!  Taking their ease, while from those called the weaker sex came the exertions necessary to get the boat into her place amongst the crowd of others.  It was not a pleasant picture, nor did it speak of gallantry.  I had never seen anything like it.”  (166-167)

Again, this revealing account of an occurrence during Liliuokalani’s stay in England seems much more like the previously-chronicled disappointment as opposed to evidence of the spoiled nature of Liliuokalani: surely the infamous male protagonists of the renowned “English novelists” would not allow such a defiance of “gallantry” to occur (165, 167).

-Michael Kell