Royal Beatings
By Alice Munro, first published in The New Yorker
At the root of her complicated family formed by her father and stepmother, a girl faces years of abuse through what they consider to be a “royal beating.”
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Plot Summary
The girl lives with her father, stepmother, and half-brother behind a grocery store. The grocery store used to belong to the girl’s mother, but she passed, after which her stepmother came in to help raise the family and tend to the grocery store. Behind it, the father works on furniture in a shed. Sometimes, the girl watches him work in the shed, muttering strange words she can’t decipher.
At a young age, the girl and her stepmother get along and work on the grocery store together. There, they get to know the locals, like a woman with a twisted neck who sometimes comes in to talk to the stepmother. Later, the stepmother tells the girl about the woman’s story: how she and her brother were beaten as children, how three men beat up their father one night, how she and her brother didn’t do anything about it, after which their father died shortly after; the three men were arrested, incarcerated for a few years, and let off shortly after.
The first royal beating happens on a Saturday, in spring, while the girl is eleven or twelve years old. On Saturdays, the girl is supposed to watch over the grocery store, but on this particular Saturday, her stepmother stays back to scrub the floor, cleaning out the filth. They argue for a little bit: the stepmother says she sacrifice everything for the girl without much thanks, and the girl doesn’t care much for her. After a while, the stepmother goes outside, to the shed, to call in the girl’s father.
The father comes in, and the stepmother tells him what’s happened. Afterward, the stepmother temporarily closes up the grocery store to ensure their privacy. The father takes off his belt and prepares to beat the girl with it. The girl tries to run and hide, but he catches her. She is beaten with his hand, after which she is sent to her room by her stepmother.
In her room, the girl can hear her father and stepmother arguing. She contemplates suicide or running away. Soon, the stepmother comes upstairs, with cold cream, to help the girl feel better. From then on, the girl finds food, beverages, other offerings in her room, but she refuses them.
After one royal beating, the father and stepmother are talking over dinner about how a “star” in Michigan was actually just an airship. The stepmother does tricks with her body to entertain. The girl stands on her head in the corner of the room. The royal beatings stop after a few years.
Many years later, the girl is now a woman, with her own apartment, some jobs, and a man. She listens to the radio, where a host is talking about the old days with a man over a hundred years old who has just passed away. She wishes she had someone to talk to, but her stepmother is now in an elderly home.