The Importance of Finding Your Voice
When the 2011 Academy Awards nominations were announced recently, "The King's Speech" dominated the nominations, earning 12 nods including best picture and best lead actor for Colin Firth as King George IV, who battles to eradicate his stammer when he suddenly takes the throne. If you haven’t seen this movie, I highly
recommend it. And for those who have already seen it, you might choose, as I did recently, to watch it a second time paying closer attention to the powerful lesson this movie offers on the importance of finding our voice.
What makes for an award winning film is great acting. "The King's Speech" is full of great acting. What makes for a timeless story, are the heroic characters whose struggles and successes are portrayed in the film. If there were an academy award for “Most Compelling Story” or “Most Timeless Life Lessons”, "The King's Speech" would be certain to run away with all those awards.
Because the characters are central to understanding the significance of this story, I am going to refer to them by name and won’t divert your attention to the actors who marvelously bring their stories to life in "The King's Speech".
The eventual King George VI was born Albert Frederick Arthur George but was known to his family as “Bertie” and to the public as Prince Albert. From his earliest childhood he was overshadowed by his older brother, Prince Edward.
In his first meeting with Lionel Logue, the man who will try to help him overcome a severe speech impediment, the Prince is asked: “When did you start to stammer?” Bertie responds, “I was about four or five when it started.”
As Logue explores the Prince’s childhood he learns Bertie was placed in leg irons to correct knock-knees. Bertie was physically and emotionally tormented by a nanny who favored his older brother and would pinch and starve him. Perhaps most significantly he was starved for affection and labeled “stupid.” Logue felt the Prince’s speech impediments could be traced directly to his father, King George V, who would angrily bark ‘Get it out!’ whenever his son stammered.
There is a direct connection between Bertie’s speech impediment and the assessment of stupidity. Prince Albert tells Logue that on one occasion in his childhood he failed to respond when asked ‘What’s half of a half?’ simply because of his inability to pronounce the word ‘quarter’.
Bertie’s speech impediment was much worse than an inability to pronounce words. He could swallow entire syllables without producing a sound—making it exasperatedly hard for his parents to understand him. He might, for instance, start with the first syllable of one word and skip to the last syllable of the next word. And there were a few words that were sure to trigger either speech paralysis or sudden and uncontrollable emotional outbursts. The ‘k’ sound, as in ‘king’ or ‘queen’ always vexed Bertie, an inopportune problem for a prince who was expected to toast his father on formal occasions.
At one particularly decisive moment on the journey to finding his voice, Bertie and Logue are going through a dress rehearsal of his coronation ceremony. They are inside Westminister Abbey. Bertie is struggling with the fear he will embarrass himself, and his people, when he rises the next day to address his people as their new king. He reveals that fear in these words:
“I’ll be like Mad King George the Stammer”
As he finishes this tirade of negativity, he turns to discover Lionel Logue slouching on St. Edward’s coronation throne. Angered by Logue’s impertinence, he shouts:
"Get up! Y-you can't sit there! GET UP!"
Logue sits with legs crossed, his hands draped across his knees. His expressionless countenance hid the plan he had conceived to help the new king discover his voice. Logue replies cooly:
"Why not? It's a chair."
The King's anger exploded in these stammer-filled words of frustration:
"T-that... that is Saint Edward's chair."
Lionel shrugged and pointed over his shoulder. "People have carved their names on it."
Bertie's face reddened with rage, spittle flew from his lips, and he stammered:
"L-listen to me... listen to me!"
Then Lionel Logue asked the question which would lead to the breakthrough moment in George VI’s life:
"Why should I waste my time listening to you?"
"Because I have a voice!" thundered George VI
Pausing to let the significance of those words sink in Lionel Logue smilingly affirms: "...yes, you do." Then he acknowledges the struggle and the enormous potential this moment foreshadowed with these words:
“You have such perseverance Bertie, you’re the bravest man I know.”
Logue was witnessing King George VI discover not only his voice but the significance of having a voice. In the course of overcoming his personal weakness this nervous, stammering man would emerge as a courageous symbol of national resistance. He personally demonstrated the resolve and persistence which would prove necessary to defeat the military might of Hitler’s Third Reich.
King George VI ‘s struggle to find and express his voice is a metaphor for the journey any adult can take towards creating a purposeful plan and legacy. Some of us stammer under the weight of sterile documents which transfer our worldly possessions. Others stutter trying to express their emotional legacy and life wisdom. King George VI discovered his voice with the assistance of a compassionate but wise professional. Consider whether a “legacy coach” could help you capture and preserve your voice. Your family will be forever grateful for your effort to find and preserve your voice.
“I have often thought the best way to define a man's character would be to seek out the particular mental or moral attitude in which, when it comes upon him, he felt himself most deeply and intensely active and alive. At such moments there is a voice inside which speaks and says: 'This is the real me!’.”—William James
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