Can You Teach an Old Dog New Tricks?

In Act 5 after surviving the battle and gaining Prince Hal's complicity in the lie that he had killed Hotspur, Falstaff pledges that he will reform his life of dissipation and become a virtuous man: "If I do grow great, I'll grow less, for I'll purge and leave sack and live cleanly as a nobleman should do "(5.4.167-9)

Yet, given what we have seen before in the play, can we expect a moral reformation for Falstaff?  While Prince Hal himself has changed his life of inquity, Falstaff has professed to amend his ways before without effect.  Is moral reform in this play possible?  If so, what factors must be present?  Why is Prince Hal a success and Falstaff a failure?  Can you teach an old dog new tricks?

Is Honor a "Mere Scutcheon"?

Many of the characters in Henry IV, Part 1 are motivated by -- even obsessed with -- honor (and its opposite dishonor), including King Henry, Hotspur and Prince Hal.  When Prince Hal reconciles with his father in Act 3, for example, he pledges to expunge his dishonor by defeating Hotspur in battle:

For every honor sitting on his helm,
Would they were multitudes, and on my head
My shames redoubled! For the time will come
That I will make this northern youth exchange
His glorious deeds for my indignities. (3.2.147-51)

Yet, Falstaff will have none of that rhetoric.  While he is also a warrior, he is more interested in surviving the battle than earning honors -- and he is not averse to taking credit for other soldier's feats of arms. In his famous speech on the eve of battle, he mocks and undercuts the rhetoric of honor:

Honor pricks me on.  Yea, but how if honor prick me off when I come on?  

How then? Can honor set to a leg? No.  Or an arm?  No. Or take away the grief 

of a wound?  No.  Honor hath no skill in surgery, then? No.  What is honor? 

A word.  What is that word "honor"?  Air.  A trim reckoning.  Who hath it? 

He that died o' Wedenesday.  Doth he feel it?  No.  Doth he hear it? No. 

'Tis insensible, then? Yea, to the dead.  But will it not live with the living?  

No.  Why? Detraction will not suffer it.   Therefore, I'll have none of it.  

Honor is a mere scutcheon.  And so ends my cathecism. (5.1.131-42)

Given this collision of attitudes, what is the play saying about honor?  Is it a good?  Is it related to virtue?  Or is it harmful value and a dangerous rhetorical concept?  Is honor a noble ideal or a "mere scutcheon"?

The Coming of Age of Prince Hal: What Does He Learn?

At the beginning of the play Prince Hal is carousing in a disreputable tavern, indulging his appetites and neglecting his princely duties.  So wayward is the young prince's actions, his father, King Henry IV, is despondent and wishes that he wasn't even his son but that Hotspur were his heir:

Whilt I, by looking on the praise of him
See riot and dishinor stain the brow
Of my young Harry.  O, that it could be proved
That some night-tripping fairy had exchanged     
In cradle-clothes our children where they lay, (Henry IV, Part 1 1.1.83-7)    

Yet by the end of the play the Prince has taken up arms to defend his father and the kingdom, saving his father in battle and defeating Hotspur in single combat.  The King's judgment of his son has radically changed as he opines:  "Thou hast redeemed thy lost opinion" (5.4.48).

What has brought about this radical transformation?  What has Prince Hal learned?  Or are these changes not as profound as they seem?

 

Art Thou to Break Into This Woman's Mood: Gender Roles in Henry IV, Part 1

Henry IV, Part 1 has few female voices: it is the play that has the second lowest percentage of lines spoken by a women (at 3.5%).  Yet, gendered language and female stereotypes are prominent in the play.  Further, the one woman with any significant lines, Lady Percy, gives as good as she gets when she "tilts with lips" with her husband, Hotspur.  

What is the play saying about gender roles in Shakespeare's time -- and does the play endorse or challenge those roles?

Foiled Again

In his soliloquy at the end of Act 1, Scene 2 Prince Hal tries to justify his wayward and irresponsible behavior by appealing to the concept of a foil.  He states, "My reformation glitt'ring o'er my fault, / Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes / Than that which hath no foil to set if off." (1.2. 220-2).  Much like a jewel looks more brillaint when contrasted with dull metal, so will his future exploits seem more virtuous when contrasted with his youthful vices.

This passage could be a manifesto for Shakespeare's use of a foil.  In much the same way Shakespeare contrasts characters who are in similar circumstances or stations in life to highlight features of their character.  In Henry IV, for instance, we have two young heirs/pretenders to the throne (Hal and Hotspur) and two father figures for Hal (Henry IV and Falstaff).  But you could argue for other examples of this kind of contrasting pairings such as two rebel leaders (Hotspur and Glendower) or two wives (Lady Percy and Lady Mortimer) or two actual fathers (Henry IV and Northumberland).

Choose ONE such pair of foils, explaining ways they are similar but also ways their words and action are contrasting and how this use of foils illuminates their character.

"Is Not the Truth the Truth?": Biases, Exaggerations and Lies

 In Act 2, Scene 4 Falstaff boasts about his battle with an ever growing number of combatants, clearly making false claims left and right about his fighting prowess.  The number of defeated combatants expands from two to eleven as ever more fanciful details and impossibilites are related, including his claim that he knew that he fought "three misbegotten knaves in Kendal Green" even though it "was so dark  . . . that one couldst not see thy hand."(2.4.230-3)  At one point he responds to the skepticism of Prince Hal and the others gathered to hear his tale with "Is not the truth the truth?"(2.4.38-9)

Falstaff is not alone as other figures tell tales to justify themselves and their action, sometimes with bias, exaggeration and even outright lies. Hotspur tells the tale of the messenger who is the cause of his not sending the king his hostages.  Glendower tells how the earth shook upon his birth.  Many of the characters relate the story of how Henry Bolingbroke became King Henry IV. What is the play telling us about truth and fiction?  Why do people embellish the truth or even lie?   What is the play telling us about the role of storytelling?  Is the truth always the truth -- or something more -- or something less?