by Aidan O’Callaghan, Blogging Circle 4
Henry IV, it’s hard to even find a place to start. It’s a hell of a play, as all of the histories (so far) have proved to be. Not only are they interesting for their historical context, something that we are deprived of in the Big S’s more commonly known works, but they contain characters as compelling as any one would find in his purer fictions. Henry IV himself, in many ways, seems to have run his course in terms of my interest (at least in this, the first part, of his eponymous trilogy). Prince Hal himself strikes me as a far more subversive and anti-monarchical character than anyone seen in Richard II, or anything, at all, for that matter. It’s hard to put into words how dislikeable he is, how dislikeable he makes himself out to be. In the very beginning of the play, before we have any reason to suspect that his ‘slumming it’ is purely an affectation and symptom of his far-sighted manipulation, he tells the viewer in simple terms that that is precisely the case. Quite seriously, I can’t think of any corollary character in literature. At least no character that isn’t a spy, and really really no character that is the incumbent king. He makes Richard II look like King Solomon. Whereas Richard was paralyzed by his philosophizing mindset, Hal is more than happy to act in openly self/crown-serving ways.
Hal makes a conscious decision to portray himself as a ‘lost cause’ to his father, and by extension all of the royal court. The idea being that he will stage a triumphant, Prodigal Son-esque return to glory. It cannot help but come off as a calculated maneuver. It is not unlikely, in my mind, that Hal did not intentionally begin his socializing with the Falstaff’s of the world as an act of rebellion against his father. A king whose sole claim to kingdom rests not on divine right, but on a successful seizure of the English throne by force. I guess Hal doesn’t have much to live up to. Maybe that’s why it all works out the way it does for him. He’s like a good plant in bad soil, water it though you may, the plant will die. Without the proper nutrients and growing environment, Hal is destined to embody his father’s personal failures. Or, at least, live to suffer the repercussions of his coup.
Woah, I got way off course with that. Back to the point. It’s genuinely surprising to me that Richard IV could have been performed in the Elizabethan era. Prince Hal represents everything that is wrong with the aristocracy. Seriously, at least in Part I, it borders on comical. The fact that he is able to turn his princely-ness on and off, seemingly at will, reinforces the idea that such identities are not immutable, but rather as easily taken on as thrown off. He is seen openly misleading and betraying people of the lower class that trust him. He manipulates the poor as a way of later manipulating the rich. Yeah, that sure instills confidence in royalty. If that doesn’t, what does? Oh, yeah, and he kills Hotspur, his foil. You know what the foil to the bad guy is?
The good guy.
He kills the good guy. The guy who is clearly his moral superior, Granted, he leads a rebellion against Henry IV, but Henry isn’t even the rightful king. It’s almost like Shakespeare is trying to make some sort of point…
Just to bring it back around once more for clarity’s sake. Hal, a clearly manipulative and conniving Prince, spends the better part of the play ‘slumming it’, for his own image’s sake, only to face the valiant and well-trained Hotspur on the field of battle, and bests him. What more is there to say? Queen Elizabeth was seriously concerned with the portrayal of royalty in her own life, and this play was performed without much fanfare, apparently. How it could have been staged in a public place without someone getting wise to the moral of the story is beyond me. Shakespeare, ultimately, makes the point that royalty and social position are primarily incidental, and certainly unrelated to any moral or divine prescription. This is completely contrary to the Ideology of Order that dictated the social structure of the Elizabethan era.
Hi Aiden,
I can’t agree more with your thoughts that prince Hal is opposite of what should be seen in an English Court. He is young, naive, and selfish. He likes to play cruel pranks that really are not necessary except for his entertainment. I think it is ironic that a Prince like Hal ends up King and becomes a ruler of a country when clearly he doesn’t even know how to handle his responsibilities. I found it immorally wrong, and I to wonder how the Elizabethan Era thought this play was an acceptable one. It shows that just because you are rightfully king that doesn’t mean you are fit to be one, and as we see Prince Hal is trying to be that exception.
I do agree with you that King Henry can easily be seen as an evil character, but I don’t know how bad of a king that makes him. Looking at the end of Henry V, not only is he is able to rally his troops against the French army who outnumber the English by a colossal amount, he is able to lose only twenty-nine men and emerge victorious. That is an admirable quality of a king and there is no disputing it. Yes, I do agree that treating his friends of the tavern so poorly was incredibly out of line when, like you said, they only wanted to be his friend. And yes, I do think that the prodigal son narrative that he inserts himself into is completely unnecessary and distasteful. Hating him as a character is a completely valid point that I agree with, but Shakespeare could be making a point about who kings fundamentally are as people. Neither Richard nor Henry IV are portrayed in such a way that elicit such a visceral and negative reaction from readers (not that I have seen in our class, anyway) the way that Henry V does. However, he seems to be the most effective king in my opinion. He killed the face of the rebellion against his father in hand-to-hand combat, he rallied an army for a war (and won) even though it made little sense for them to fight it in the first place, and he attempts to wash away the sins of his father’s hostile takeover of the crown from Richard, thus legitimizing his blood line and tying him into Edward’s bloodline. Ultimately, he achieves his goal of uniting England and even brings France into the mix, which I must say, probably shouldn’t have even been possible. This guy may be an awful person, but he does a bang-up job as king. I wonder what Shakespeare was thinking when he wrote this character because he is far more complex than we are making him out to be.
Aiden,
While I’ve never really seen Hal as truly evil, I really appreciated your analysis of him as the “bad guy” of the story. It’s true that showing him lounging around more often than not makes him an awful example of a person in a position of royalty. Indeed, the fact that his father seized the crown rather than inheriting it causes further concern for whether or not Hal can be a competent and rightful leader. Rather than do his best to prove himself, Hal lazes around in a tavern, pretending to make friends with a bunch of people who he’ll later use to better himself as an individual.
I found your comment on Hal being “a good plant in bad soil” interesting because it coincides with the garden of eden imagery present throughout Richard II and Henry IV. If you could develop that point more and connect it to the allusion to the garden of eden that would make for a great essay.
Like you, I have struggled to clearly put my finger on who exactly King Hal is as a character. His talent as a masterful manipulator, which is made evident time and time again throughout these plays, lends itself to audiences being less likely to trust, and thereby support Hal. I agree that is it rather fascinating how quickly Hal is able to flip the switch, transforming from his old self to his new “kingly” self at the drop of a hat. Arguably, this speaks to the fact that kingship is no more than a facade, and just as his father seized the crown and made a kingship for himself, anyone else can portray themselves as royal. This opens us up to the argument, once again, of what makes any king legitimate. Also, like his father, Hal is a man supported by the common people, although Henry IV gained this support in what was likely a much more pure manner. Henry V, in contrast, uses his experience from his “Tavern days” to manipulate the commoners, once his friends, now his subjects. Like you said, and as we have said in class all semester, it is rather peculiar that these history plays were even allowed to be performed during Shakespeare’s life, especially for the King’s court. Undoubtedly, countless subliminal comments are being made about government policies and political tradition in each and every Shakespearean history play.
Hey Stephanie,
The consistence of that imagery was very intentional on my part, maybe I should have made that clearer in my post. To expand on it, all royal lineage in the Henriad is described according to the arboreal metaphor. Maybe it’s because I was so deeply effecting by the dethroning scene and the Bishop’s corresponding condemnation. He says that “The blood English shall manure the ground… cursed earth.” (Act 4, Scene 1). It’s not like people are going around “prophesying” things all the time in Shakespeare. That moment, when the Henriad is viewed as a single unit, compartmentalizes everything that occurs until Henry V’s death within this prophecy of doom.