51 pages • 1 hour read
Meg CabotThe Princess Diaries
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2000A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Mia Thermopolis
Mia is a high school freshman and the protagonist of The Princess Diaries. Mia lives in Manhattan with her mother and attends Albert Einstein High School. When the novel begins, she is in her first month of high school. Although her biggest concerns early in the book center around her mother dating her algebra teacher, Mia’s life takes a dramatic turn when she learns that she is the Princess of Genovia and the heir to a throne she doesn’t want. Through her diary entries, Mia shares her daydreams and her deepest insecurities about high school, friendship, boys, and her new title as Princess Mia.
Like many teenagers, Mia is deeply insecure about her personal appearance. Although Michael refers to Mia as a “very tall pretty girl” (280), and a journalist calls her a “statuesque beauty” (185), Mia does not recognize her own attractiveness. In fact, she complains through most of the novel that she is “five foot nine” and “flat-chested” (1). She also criticizes her “really bad hair,” which she claims, “isn’t curly or straight,” so she “ha[s] to wear it really short or […] look like a Yield sign” (45). Finally, Mia claims to have “a really big mouth [...] and feet that look like skis” (45). Because she thoroughly picks apart and criticizes her own appearance, Mia firmly believes that she doesn’t fit the mold of a beautiful princess.
Mia is a self-proclaimed liar, and the first thing she tells the reader about herself is, “All I ever do is lie” (1). However, the “lies” that Mia tells are never malicious or self-serving. In fact, Mia has a habit of “lying about how [she] feel[s]” (5) to spare the feelings of other people or to avoid confrontation. When her mother starts dating Mr. Gianini, Mia feels uncomfortable about the situation, but she “[doesn’t] want [her] mom to know how weird [she] feel[s] about this, not when she’s so happy about it” (8). Mia is a people pleaser, especially when it comes to the people she loves. However, she also conceals her real feelings and doesn’t stand up for herself when people like Lana, Grandmère, or even Lilly make her feel bad about herself. Mia admits that she has a “fear of confrontation” (128), and she is very passive when it comes to conflict.
However, things start to change after Mia undergoes Paolo’s makeover. She says that she is “tired of [Lilly] putting [her] down all the time” because, “All day long, my mom and dad and grandmother and teachers are telling me what to do” (136), so she decides to take control over her own life. Mia eventually stands up to Lilly, her parents, Lana, her grandmother, and even the boy she thought was perfect. Mia realizes that confrontation can be a good thing, and she decides that she will “never achieve self-actualization if [she] always back[s] down from [her] convictions” (143). By the end of the novel, Mia still has a lot of growing up to do, but she has started to find her own voice and unapologetically take up space instead of trying to make herself small.
Lilly Moscovitz
Lilly is Mia’s best friend, a fellow freshman at Albert Einstein High School, and the host of a public access TV show called Lilly Tells It Like It Is. As the title of her show implies, Lilly is often a blunt observer of the world around her. While Mia struggles to voice her feelings and opinions, Lilly is quick to speak and doesn’t worry about the repercussions of what she says or does. Mia remarks that “Lilly isn’t afraid of anything” (24), which fills Mia with admiration as well as fear.
Mia says that although Lilly is “short and sort of round and kind of resembles a pug,” she “totally doesn’t care how she looks” (24). Mia is deeply uncomfortable with her own appearance, but Lilly is known to laugh when people call her ugly, and she insists that “it doesn’t matter what anybody looks like; what matters is what’s going on on the inside” (134). Mia also marvels at Lilly’s intelligence, and she writes that Lilly is “very, very smart, but unlike many very smart people, she doesn’t rub it in all the time, the fact that she’s so much smarter than [Mia]” (120). While Mia worries about popularity and staying under the radar, Lilly is determined to make a big splash, whether that means standing up to Lana, taunting her stalker on her TV show, or launching a boycott against a couple of “racist” deli owners. Lilly is full of opinions, and she is known for having no filter and blurting out her thoughts before thinking, which can cause her to come across as controlling or bossy.
As much as Mia admires Lilly, she admits that Lilly has a judgmental streak that can make it difficult to open up to her. Mia writes, “Lilly is my best friend and I tell her everything, except the part about me being a princess, which I don’t think she’d understand” (121). Mia knows that Lilly has strong opinions about monarchies and their control over the common people, and she secretly fears that her best friend will hate her when she finds out that she is princess of Genovia. Despite Lilly’s insistence that looks don’t matter, she is quick to pass judgment when she sees Mia’s new hair after Paolo’s makeover, which hints that Lilly might be jealous of Mia. Although she often scolds Mia for not being assertive enough, Lilly becomes angry when Mia stands up to her. By the end of the story, however, Lilly is starting to understand the error of her ways. She admits that she “knows that she’s controlling and that she suffers from a borderline authoritarian personality disorder” (271), and Lilly promises to try to be a better person and a better friend to Mia.
Helen Thermopolis
Helen is Mia’s mother and a New York City artist. Mia lives with her mother in her artist’s loft during the school year, and at the beginning of the novel, Mia reveals that her mother is the one who encouraged her to start keeping a diary in the first place. Mia’s mother tells her that she “wants [Mia] to write down her feelings” because Mia “obviously [doesn’t] feel [she] can talk about them with [her]” (1). Helen is a passionate soul who loves her daughter, but her flighty behavior makes it difficult for Mia to trust her completely.
Mia and her mother have an atypical mother-daughter relationship. Mia’s mother is an unconventional woman with strong views about family, the patriarchy, and personal responsibilities. Helen explains that she never married Mia’s father because “she rejected the bourgeois mores of a society that didn’t even accept women as equals to men and refused to recognize her rights as an individual” (28), and she has strong opinions about societal gender norms. Mia complains that she often has to remind her mother to pay the bills, complete her art projects, and take care of basic housekeeping tasks. Mia loves her mother, but she admits that she “just wish[es] she could be more of a mom and less of an artist” (69). Because of her mother’s inconsistency, Mia has to adopt more responsibility than most teenagers to make sure she and her mother can stay afloat financially. After all, Mia comments that her mother is “always very grumbly when [Mia] remind[s] her that she has paintings due by a certain time,” because her mother “likes to work when the muses move her” (43). Helen is a creative soul and despises structure, but this makes life challenging for her daughter, who doesn’t want to have to be the parental figure at 14 years old.
Despite her shortcomings, Mia’s mother is very protective of her and has her best interests at heart. She is quick to jump to Mia’s defense, especially where Mia’s father and her grandmother are concerned. When Helen starts dating Mr. Gianini, she is very concerned about Mia’s feelings and wants to respect her daughter’s thoughts and opinions about the arrangement. Helen is not a particularly stable or consistent parent, but she has a big heart, and she would do anything in her power to make Mia happy.
Phillipe Renaldo
Phillipe is Mia’s father and Crown Prince of Genovia. Phillipe’s absence from the Princess Diaries film is one of the greatest deviations from the source material. In the film adaptation, Mia’s father recently died and is not an active character in the story. However, in the original novel, he is alive after a frightening brush with testicular cancer. Phillipe sees Mia only during summer and Christmas vacations, and until Chapter 10, he manages to conceal his title as Prince of Genovia from her. When Mia learns that her father “can’t have any more kids” (26), she is unbothered by this news, and she can’t understand why her father is “really bummed out” (27). After all, her father is “pretty busy running Genovia” (27) and barely seems to have time for her, let alone any more children. At this point, Mia thinks her father is a politician, and she doesn’t yet understand how his infertility will directly impact her.
Mia’s father has trouble forming meaningful relationships with others, especially women. Even though he has a very active dating life and a long list of past girlfriends, Mia reports that he “dumps them a week later” (27), and he never married or had other children to take his place on the Genovian throne. Mia’s mother tells her that “Grandmère used to punish [Phillipe] when he was a little boy by locking him into this one really scary room in their house” (76), and as a result, her father has a complicated relationship with his mother and women in general. Mia comments that her father “does every single thing Grandmère says” (76), and he has trouble saying no to her. While Helen is more likely to try to reason with Mia during a disagreement, Phillipe is “totally rigid in the discipline department” (76), and he is quicker to raise his voice or resort to bribery to try to bend Mia to his will.
However, Phillipe cares deeply for Mia and is deliberate about making time for her. Mia says that any time her father is in town, they have a tradition of going to see Beauty and the Beast on Broadway, because it is “[Mia’s] all-time favorite Broadway musical” (36). Throughout the novel, Phillipe tries to coax Mia into going to see the show with him, because it is a special father-daughter bonding experience that they both enjoy. Phillipe may project an image of an authoritarian father or a bachelor with commitment issues, but he is also very sensitive and lonely, and he wants to make the women in his life happy. Despite his failings as a father or a romantic partner, Mia reports that her father is a good and fair leader for the people of Genovia, and she wants to do the right thing for Genovia, just like he does.
Clarisse Marie Grimaldi Renaldo (Grandmère)
Grandmère is Mia’s paternal grandmother, the mother of Prince Phillipe, and the Dowager Princess of Genovia. Unlike her lovable, charming, and polite film persona, the Grandmère of The Princess Diaries novel is known for her sharp tongue, hypercritical opinions, and general dislike of children. She complains that “young people give her migraines” (30), and Mia believes that her grandmother is such a public nuisance that “somebody ought to warn the president she’s here” (98) when she arrives in New York, because “if anybody could start World War III, it’s [Mia’s] grandmother” (98-99). While Grandmère doesn’t fit the mold of a villain, her presence in Mia’s life is somewhat antagonistic, especially in the first half of the novel.
Grandmère has old-fashioned views, and she can be very judgmental. Mia remembers that one summer, she watched as her grandmother didn’t give a dinner guest any foie gras as a punishment for having “a child out of wedlock” (99). When Mia points out her grandmother’s hypocrisy, given that her own son didn’t marry Mia’s mother, Grandmère ignores her. Mia also claims that Grandmère “has a fit when she sees people of the opposite sex holding hands,” so Mia knows that Grandmère “might have a heart attack” (100) if she witnesses the Pride Parade in the Village. Grandmère drinks and smokes heavily, and she dismisses Princess Diana, one of the most beloved royals in history, as “a twink” (114). Grandmère is also critical of Mia’s mother, and she comments that Helen Thermopolis is raising “the princess of Genovia” in a “warehouse” (246).
When Mia learns that Grandmère intends to give her “princess lessons,” she is horrified. After all, Grandmère is very difficult to get along with, and Mia spends most of the novel hoping that her grandmother will die soon, “if there’s any justice at all in the world” (122). During these lessons, Grandmère criticizes Mia’s appearance and manners, and she forces her granddaughter to undergo a dramatic makeover in hopes of making her look more presentable as a princess. However, as the novel progresses, Mia begins to share more details about her personal life with Grandmère. After a few weeks, Grandmère, who compliments others very sparingly, tells Mia that she has “come a long way since [they] started” (167) their princess lessons. When she learns that Mia is going to the school dance, Grandmère takes over and ensures that Mia looks and feels beautiful for the event. Although Mia claims that she “sort of hate[s]” Grandmère because she is “totally vain and thinks only about herself” (224), Grandmère manages to push Mia outside her comfort zone, and her overbearing attitude somehow empowers her to stand up for herself and embrace the changes that are happening in her life.
