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?
In the history play Henry IV, Part 1, Shakespeare pits the differing backgrounds and morals of Falstaff and Hal to demonstrate that while external factors may encourage reform, change must truly come from self-motivation and grit. An exemplary instance of how outside occurrences do not provoke real change is in Falstaff. While in the tavern (and most likely abhorrently drunk), Falstaff begins singing praise of himself:
ReplyDeleteI was as virtuously given as a gentleman need to be, virtuous enough: swore little; diced not above seven times – a week; went to a bawdy house not above once in a quarter – of an hour; paid money that I borrowed – three or four times; lived well and in good compass; and now I live out of all order, out of all compass. (Henry IV, Part 1 3.3.14-21).
After Bardolph replies that Falstaff is “so fat, Sir John, that [he] must needs be out of all compass,” Falstaff responds out of spite, saying “[do] though amend thy face, and I’ll amend my life” (1H4 3.3.22-26). Falstaff’s reaction while in the leaping-house shows his overall determination to stay exactly where he is. Notably, he emphasizes that he only visits the brothel “not above once in a quarter – of an hour” (1H4 3.3.18-19). The pause that Shakespeare places here is a reminder that Falstaff merely wants to make himself look good in the short term; after all, a quarter signifies a quarter of a year, astronomically longer than a quarter of an hour, which is laughably short. The final and most decisive evidence of Falstaff’s inertia because of personal issues is his hostility toward any recommendation to change. Even though Bardolph rightfully asserts that Falstaff is morbidly obese, Falstaff ignores the true statement and puts his slanderer on the defense with a hurtful remark about Bardolph’s face; remarkable about this exchange is how Falstaff employs the tu quoque fallacy, where one side of the argument thinks that assaulting the opposition with individual attacks is effective and valid reasoning, exhibiting his willingness to evade any discussion of his own faults that might spur a lifestyle alteration. In sharp contrast to Falstaff’s hilarious inadequacies and lack of drive, in the tavern, Hal soliloquizes about his plan to make himself stand out:
My reformation, glitt’ring o’er my fault,
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
I’ll so offend to make offense a skill,
Redeeming time when men think least I will. (1H4 1.3.220-224)
Hal utilizes “reformation” and “redeeming” in his speech and acknowledges that he has committed “offense” (1H4 1.3.220-224) This type of language is deeply different from Falstaff’s because it is apologetic and reminiscent of more moral, biblical words from something akin to the Lord’s Prayer: “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you” (KJV Bible, Matt. 6.14). Additionally, Hal has a concrete (albeit convoluted) plan to set about his radical rehabilitation, which already differentiates him from Falstaff, who has nothing but self-praise. Furthermore, although the poetry here may simply be a sign of Hal’s nobility, the previous abundance of Hal’s prose in the tavern suggests otherwise (such as Hal’s stinging remarks to Falstaff when Hal wakes up the sleeping Sir John); the use of iambic pentameter signifies that a change of heart has occurred in Hal from an entirely internal source, not due to his social status. Shakespeare thus argues that the greatest and most innate factor in amending one’s lifestyle is the insatiable desire to strive ever higher.
In the historical production of Henry IV, part 1, we are introduced to a character named Falstaff, who is shown throughout the entirety of the play to be a lying, stealing, fat man who only truly cares about alcohol and money. After the death of Hotspur, he pledges to live cleanly from then on to Prince Hal, talking of purging sack and attempting to maintain himself in a better way. However, based on his past actions, is Falstaff capable of reform? As we see in the (relatively recent) past in the play, Falstaff chooses to fake dead on the battlefield to avoid playing an active role in the fight. His death is so well faked that Prince Hal seems to believe his façade, honoring his death and wishing his passage in it a farewell. However, Falstaff isn't dead, instead having looked over the fight that had killed Hotspur. In the end, after Prince Hal leaves, Falstaff gets up from where he was lying, and pretends to have fought Hotspur, pretending he rose from the dead as well as he did. He tries to use this in order to become a noble due to his "victory" over Hotspur, and tries to convince Prince Hal that this is true. While Prince Hal is surprised that Falstaff is alive, he doesn't believe him, instead promising that he'd hold his lie for him. Falstaff's first instinct after watching the death and final words of Hotspur is to pretend to kill him in order to taste nobility. It is not probable that Falstaff will ever truly learn to be better, unless he receives a wake-up call greater than the almost-death of Prince Hal.
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