The Empress's Ring by Nancy Hale
"The Empress's Ring" by Nancy Hale is a poignant narrative exploring themes of childhood nostalgia, loss, and the enduring emotional connections to cherished objects. The story follows a narrator reflecting on a golden ring set with turquoises, a birthday gift from a beloved family friend, believed to have belonged to Austria's Empress Elisabeth. This precious item symbolizes not only affection but also the innocence and desires of childhood, contrasting with her feelings of envy towards the more glamorous possessions of her peers, particularly the playhouse of a neighbor named Mimi.
The narrator's attachment to the ring intensifies when she is forbidden to wear it outside, leading her to rebel against this restriction by playing in her own makeshift playhouse, which lacks the charm of Mimi’s. However, her joy is marred when she loses the ring in a sandpile, an event that haunts her into adulthood. Despite her attempts to recover it, the loss represents a deeper sense of longing and unfulfilled desire, as she grapples with feelings of inadequacy and the passage of time. The narrative captures the essence of how childhood memories and perceived losses can resonate throughout life, ultimately reflecting on the continued impact of our formative experiences.
On this Page
The Empress's Ring by Nancy Hale
First published: 1954
Type of plot: Fiction of manners
Time of work: 1954
Locale: The South
Principal Character:
The unnamed narrator , a woman reflecting on her childhood
The Story
The narrator of this story begins with an admission: "I worry about it still, even today, thirty odd years later." The object of her worry is a child's golden ring "set with five little turquoises." It was given to the narrator for her eighth birthday by a family friend of whom she was so fond that she thought of her as her aunt. The ring was special not only because it was purchased especially for the narrator by a favorite relative but also because the ring was said to have belonged to Austria's Empress Elisabeth.
The ring is so beautiful and precious that immediately the little girl's nurse declares that it cannot be worn outside to play. This only makes the child want to defy her nurse: "For nobody—certainly not she—could understand the love I had for that ring, and the absolute impossibility of my ever losing anything so precious."
She does indeed wear the ring out to play in her playhouse. Attaining a playhouse is "a sort of victory" for the narrator as a little girl. She has envied the playhouse of their only neighbors, which was built especially for their little girl Mimi. Mimi's playhouse is a miniature cottage complete with shuttered windows, a shingled roof, and a brass knocker that says "Mimi." It is furnished with a miniature table and chairs and real Dresden china made just for children's tea parties.
The narrator, too, must have a playhouse, but her family cannot and will not build one to rival Mimi's, for their farm is no longer a working one. Instead, they clean out an abandoned milk house and move some of her nursery furniture into it.
Although the little girl tries to make it a real playhouse, it cannot match the grandeur of Mimi's. Her mother gives her some of her old china, but the narrator yearns for "rosebuds" and "china, made for children." As an adult, she realizes that what she had was much nicer, but as a girl, she recalls, she felt that "nothing . . . would take the place of pink rosebuds." This yearning added to the appeal of the ring, which, like the miniature china and furniture for which she longed, was meant for a little girl.
She loses the ring in her sandpile—a sandpile that is as imperfect as her playhouse. The sand has become mixed with dirt, for unlike Mimi's sandpile, it lacks a frame to contain it. The narrator is scolded for losing her ring, but in childish bravado she announces that it is not lost at all; she knows exactly where it is. Although she searches for it many times, eventually she feels "a hollow, painful feeling inside me because I had lost my precious possession." The loss of the ring haunts her, and she periodically digs for the ring in the sandpile and even dreams of finding it.
As the narrator tells the reader at the beginning of the story, thirty years later she is still thinking of her ring. Now an adult, she retains some of her childhood tendency toward envy and dissatisfaction. Mimi's perfection has been replaced by that of other neighbors, the Lambeths; the narrator is certain that they have "silver tumblers" while her glasses are "a sorry collection, the odds and ends of a number of broken sets."
The narrator consoles herself with the thought that although the old place where she grew up as a child has been sold, perhaps the new owners have a little girl who will dig in the sandpile, if it still exists, and will find the empress's ring.