Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis

In her memoir, Priscilla Beaulieu Presley identifies her decision to leave Elvis Presley as the start of her self-liberation. “Contrary to rumor” (11), Priscilla didn’t leave Elvis because of his affairs or her own. Rather, Priscilla seeks to present a more complex explanation for her decision, and what resulted from it. Priscilla first depicts the restrictive nature of their marriage, which abided by the social standards of the time: “It was difficult for us to have a marriage of equals when Elvis was used to being in charge” (4). Priscilla resists painting Elvis as a villain, however, and instead categorizes him as a man of his time: taught to be the head of the household and to expect his wife to play the supporting role. Priscilla learned early “never to question his behavior” (5) even when she felt hurt or bothered by his late nights out, his interest in other women, or his constant need for attention. Priscilla holds that “Elvis never forced” (5) her into this role, as she had internalize the need to be submissive and silent from a young age. Still, Priscilla describes being Elvis’s wife like being “the proverbial bird in a gilded cage” (5), a metaphor which evokes ornamentation and entrapment. From the outside, Priscilla’s life may have looked glamorous and idyllic, but in reality, she was lonely, stifled, and powerless.

Leaving Elvis was Priscilla’s first act of agency, which ultimately led her on a path to autonomy and self-empowerment. Over the course of the memoir, Priscilla repeatedly returns to her thesis statement: She has never regretted her decision to leave Elvis despite how painful the decision was and despite how others regarded her for it. Each choice Priscilla has made as a free woman reminds her that leaving was necessary to find her own voice and identity: She “could never have a life of my own in the velvet cocoon I lived in” (14).

Since her divorce, Priscilla has explored the world and herself in myriad eclectic ways. She is a devoted mother, actress, designer, businesswoman, and philanthropist. “People my age often have bucket lists”, she writes, but Priscilla doesn’t need one because she has “already experienced everything [she’s] dreamed of” (315). Priscilla believes she has lived such a rich and fulfilling life because she allowed herself to dream beyond the confines of her first marriage. She identified the flaws in her situation and decided she needed to take action. In turn, she orchestrated a life that has been truly her own, free from others’ limited expectations for who she could be.