Diana's story is indeed a tragedy -- in the original, Greek, Aristotelian sense, complete with a protagonist of high social position and the structuring principle of tragic irony -- a sequence of events leading ultimately to the physical destruction of those who initiated that process in order to avoid the unexpected consequence of their course of action. In order to keep from fulfilling the prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother, Oedipus, for example, leaves the people whom he considers his parents, travels to a distant land, and ends up unknowingly killing his father and marrying his mother. His parents had tried to evade a parallel prophecy before his birth by ordering a servant to kill the infant. In a further ironic twist, this physical destruction (death or exile in the Greek world) becomes the precondition for the hero's or heroine's spiritual victory and "immortality." Tragedy for the Greeks was misfortune caused precisely by one's dedication to the pursuit of truth and justice. The jealous gods and inexorable fate would not permit goodness to prevail on earth. And yet, for humans, it was the noblest calling to risk all for the sake of the Good, the True, the Beautiful. Diana is Oedipus, Antigone, Socrates. But Diana is also a twentieth-century woman who in her loving concern for the victims of AIDS and land mines and human cruelty will continue to be an inspiration to people all over the world.
In addition, the story bubbles over with multivalent symbols of the eternally recurring myths of old. Artemis, goddess of birthing and teacher of boys, at once huntress and champion of wild beasts, virgin mother free of male control, identified by Aeschylus with Persephone, turns into Diana, Roman goddess of the chase, moon, and virginity, and as a twentieth century princess finds herself trapped in a monstrous black armored car-coffin, hurtling through the narrow, brightly lit tunnel, the walls rushing by, the engine roaring, pursued by seven one-eyed motorcycle-furies. What bone-chilling, absolute terror, especially for a mother of young sons! The kidnapping of golden-haired Proserpina comes to mind as dark Pluto carries her off into the underworld in his chariot drawn by a team of race horses.
But Diana's story is also a Christian story, and in the Christian analogical universe the Greek tragedy becomes a divine comedy, for death, in John Donne's words, has lost its sting. The tunnel, in that perspective, is a birthing channel. Clearly, in this prosaic, democratic, supposedly secular world we still need heroic figures with whom we can identify, in whose superhuman goodness we can somehow participate, and who incarnate for us whatever we consider divine.
Diana followed Jesus when she did not respond to he own
sense of being lonely and unloved by turning cold and bitter. Instead she
reached out and fed the hungry, clothed the naked, housed the homeless,
and cared for the sick. And -- like Dante's Beatrice -- she did so as a
woman who represented the entire spectrum of love from the spiritual and
maternal to the passionate and erotic. In many ways, she is indeed a saint,
canonized by popular acclamation, and she can become a sign for all of
us that sanctity is not the exclusive domain of celibate clerics and barefoot
virgins. She demonstrates that a wealthy, glamorous, fun-loving, sexually
active divorced mother can be a pure lens for God's love and an ambassador
for human rights and peace. As we watched that mangled Mercedes, millions
of us all over the world -- a rainbow of races, nations, religions, social
levels, and ideologies -- became
for a little while a global community in our shared shock and grief. "Cor
ad cor loquitur" was Cardinal Newman's motto, "heart speaks to
heart." And Diane was, is, and shall be our "Queen of Hearts"
on whose realm the sun may never set.
May she rest in peace!
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