“Many years ago there lived an Emperor, who cared so enormously for new clothes that he spent all his money upon them, that he might be very fine. He did not care about his soldiers, and did not care about the theatre, and only liked to drive out and show his new clothes. He had a coat for every hour of the day; and just as they say of a king, ‘He is in council,’ one always said of him, ‘The Emperor is in the wardrobe.’”
And so, the story begins. What can we discern by the exposition of this story? What kind of person spends “all his money” on what they wear? We all know someone like this, its all about how it looks. They might drive the most expensive cars, wear designer labels, attend the toniest events—all with the underlying reason of seeing and being seen. To say, “The Emperor is in the wardrobe” is to describe this kind of psychological state of being.
Interestingly the tale says of the Emperor that he spends all his money on new clothes that “he might be very fine.” This leads me to make a “fine” distinction between being fine and appearing fine. “The Emperor is in the wardrobe” describes narcissistic dynamics where “image replaces substance, and what Jung called the persona (the self one shows to the world) becomes more vivid and dependable than one’s actual person” (McWilliams, 1994, p. 170).
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