Hi -
I’m currently reading a book set in an asylum, in which one of the peripheral characters thinks he’s Napoleon.
I remember, from my youth, this was a common cultural reference - many lunatics were portrayed as believing they were the tiny emperor - generally for comedic effect.
However, over the years, I’ve seen references to this phenomenon dwindle. Is there a replacement? Has another figure supplanted Napoleon in delusional popularity?
And was there an original - a first Napoleonic pretender? Have any case studies been done?
On a side note, I remember a Monty Python sketch that had wards divided into delusions - all of the Napoleons were in one ward, all of the Richard III’s in another. One Richard, who was on the road to recovery, was calmly and off-handedly delivering his famous line, rather than ranting — “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse…”
Any thoughts? Wikipedia has been my best source so far, but even they go only so far with the subject.
You know…I could be way off here but it occurs to me the Napolene cliche may have come about because the lunatic asylum and the formal study of mental illness coincided with the Napoleonic era. So they found people who’s delusions were about the most important person they knew of. I wonder if they’re really were many Napoleonic delusions since then or if it had just become an entrenched idea?
At any rate my anecdotal information currently is, mom says she know of no Napoleons, they still get a far number of Jesus’, and her own patient isn’t actually Nixon but his good friend (he was institiutionalized when Nixon was still president). I think the question is power. Your delusions of grandure are based on whoever’s grand at the time. There are probably a lot of George W. Bush’s in mental hospitals right now. (Further comment withheld as this is GQ .)
I can quickly find a reference in popular writing from 1934 that says there are people who are mentally unstable that think they are Napoleon–and it’s inferred as a stereotype.
I’ll look some more to see how far back I can take it.
I don’t know if this a really reliable measure of your answer - but Diego Maradona, when he came out of the treatment clinic in Cuba for his cocaine addiction, told reporters “there are four men in there who believe they are Napoleon, yet no one would believe I was Maradona”. Perhaps it was just a good soundbite…
I thought that was the way that line was supposed to be delivered - that’s how Al Pacino does it in “Looking for Richard”, and if there’s any man who looks for an excuse to deliver a rant, it’s Pacino!
As an aside, I would venture a guess that there were very few people who thought they were Napolean before the Napoleanic Era
My second-or-third favorite Horatio Hornblower short story (after “The Man Who Saw God” and “Horatio Hornblower and The Widow McCool”) featured a very old and very retired Admiral Horatio Hornblower answering his door on a cold and stormy night to find some crazy guy claiming to be Napolean. What’s more, he wanted a ride to London so he could catch a boat to France, which he needed to do immediately.
Of course, the man was way too young to be Napolean, and acted out of character anyways. Hornblower decided he was just some crazy cook, and didn’t want to deal with him any longer than he had to. His wife, Barbara, pleads with him to arrange transport for the guy, and since Hornblower has never had any ability to say no when dealing with women (least of all Barbara), he has his servant give the crazy guy a ride to London in his carriage.
Several weeks later, they find out that Louis Napolean Bonaparte has just been elected President of the Republic of France.
