Henry V Character Analysis

After reading Machiavelli’s The Prince and watching Shakespeare’s Henry V in class, one begins to notice similarities between the authors’ idea of what a “perfect king” should be. The patterns between the ideal ruler of Shakespeare and the ideal ruler of Machiavelli can be seen in numerous instances throughout this story. For the duration of this essay, I will compare the similarities in both pieces to give the reader a better understanding of how Shakespeare devised his view of what a “perfect king” should be.

Almost every scholar who has learned about King Henry V can agree that he is one of the most popular kings of his time period. Henry V was a young king so many scholars have questioned his actions. Especially, due to his earlier lifestyle because Henry V was an immature adult before he became king but when he became king he seemed very wise. This might be because he did not want people to expect much of him. But, one question that has been debated for a long time now is: is Henry V a Christian King or a Machiavelli tyrant? Henry V was a Machiavelli cruel leader and not a Christian king for these three reasons: He was not merciful, he led his men into battle because of his own desires, and Henry’s disguise.

“He felt that in this crisis his laws of life were useless. Whatever he had learned of himself was here of no avail. He was an unknown quantity. He saw that he would again be obliged to experiment as he had in early youth. He must accumulate information of himself, and meanwhile he resolved to remain close upon his guard lest those qualities of which he knew nothing should everlastingly disgrace him.” (Crane, Chapter 1) From this quote the reader can tell that Henry is fearful about whether he has the courage to fight in a battle. Henry assumes that war is only for creating heroes and that they are granted prestige in society. When he recalled his mothers advice, he realizes that it isn’t about making a name for himself, but meeting his responsibility honestly even if he has to sacrifice his own life.

In the film Regarding Henry, Henry Turner depicts a more complex Id and Superego, that is capable of having positive and negative qualities on each side. Through complex character development throughout the film, Turner creates a two sided Id and Superego. After seemingly changing personality traits, due to a freak accident, Turner’s views on life are changed after a complete memory loss.

As Henry is trying to find ways to justify running from the battle, he happens to overhear a few men talking about the very same battle. His side had won, and Henry is faced with the harsh truth, Henry ran out of fear. Not because he though that the soldiers fighting alongside him would lose, but because he was afraid only for his own life. As he is thinking about all of this, Henry finally comes across other soldiers. As he inspects them more closely however, he notices that they are all badly wounded. Still trying to escape the battle, he joins

After the war, Henry remained cold to everything around him. “He sat in front of it, watching it, and that was the only time he was completely still. But it was the kind of stillness that you see in a rabbit when it freezes and before it will bolt. He was not easy. He sat in his chair gripping the armrests with all his might.” By comparing Henry to a rabbit frozen in fear, it really shows how immense his anguish is. “I looked over, and he’d bitten through his lip… So we went and sat down. There was still blood going down Henry’s chin, but he didn’t notice it and no one said anything even though every time he took a bite of his bread his blood fell onto it until he was eating his own blood mixed in with the food.” This quote uniquely shows how closed off he is emotionally. He has experienced so much pain from the war that he ignores his own suffering. It is clear that Henry had some extent of PTSD from the war. He was drowning in pain so much that he ignored his own purpose and value, so much so that he ended up taking his

Shakespeare’s Henry V presents a man transformed from rowdy teenager to righteous king. With the death of Henry’s father, Henry’s “wildness…/Seemed to die too” (1.1.26-27). While Henry has seemingly transformed into a powerful man awarded praise, his actions at times seem morally questionable and disingenuous as he continually deflects blame on others and contradicts his notions for peace. Throughout the play, Henry’s speeches persuade and manipulate audiences as he effectively uses the power of rhetoric to achieve his goals. He has the power to intimidate his enemies, uplift his soldiers, and mold himself into whoever he needs to be. With the change of Henry’s character came a greater title and the responsibility for an entire nation, causing him to abandon his outwardly destructive behavior and dissemble. Shakespeare thus contends that there is a difference between being a good person and a successful leader; national heroism and effective kingship is not necessarily attained through moral actions, but rather through the art of powerful rhetoric and the ability to seem moral and virtuous rather than to be moral and virtuous, thereby mimicking some characteristics of how a successful ruler should appear, as suggested in Machiavelli’s The Prince. While Henry is certainly ruthless at times, his ability to assume the roles necessary for successful leadership is what makes him a great king.

Henry’s internal struggle is his view of courage. Henry believes courage is something a person earns and achieves. He never experienced war, but has dreamt and, “He had imagined peoples secure in the shadow of his eagle-eyed prowess. But awake he had regarded battles as crimson blotches on the pages of the past. He had put them as things of the bygone with his thought-images of heavy crowns and high castles.” (Crane 3) Henry wants to go to war to become a hero. He thinks that he has courage and could go to war and get all the glory. Henry runs from battle and has guilt, he comes up with excuses, he is a piece of the army and should save himself. When Henry comes back to the battlefield, he sees wounded soldiers and, “At times he regarded the

Henry sacrificed his romantic ideas of war to become a good soldier. When Henry enlists, he imagines glorious battles and being a war hero. “His busy mind had drawn for him large pictures extravagant in color, lurid with breathless deeds.” (p. 4) However, in his first battle, war isn't the noble act he envisioned. He watches numerous people he knows die horrible deaths and runs away out of fear. “On his face was the horror of those things which he imagined...He ran like a blind man.”(p. 46) The scenes that he witnesses are so horrific, that it leads to him being unable to focus on anything, even running from those sites. After running, Henry realizes that he isn't going to be a war hero. It is this realization that allows Henry to become a good soldier. In his next battle, Henry forgets about himself and fights as a part of a group. “He suddenly lost concern for himself...He was welded into a common personality that was dominated by a single desire.”(p. 38) He becomes such a good soldier that his commander tells him “‘...if I had ten thousand wild cats like you I could tear the stomach outa this war in less’n a week!’”(p. 111). Sacrificing the idea that he is going to be a war hero is what allows Henry to become

     War takes a toll on people; the intensity varies from person to person. In Henry?s case, the toll was very heavy. The Henry before the war was the opposite of the post-war

In the creation of a text the composer’s choices relating to the ways in which they construct the text are used to position the responder towards a desired interpretation. This is particularly evident in texts concerning people and politics as the composers shaping of the text manipulates the responder to favour a particular political view or person’s perspective. In the play ‘King Henry IV Part One’ (c.1597) writer William Shakespeare constructs the text so that the audience conforms to his idea of the rightful ruler as influenced by his personal and historical context. Similarly, in the television series ‘The Borgias’ (2011) created by Neil Jordan the text is constructed so that the audience favours the corrupt pope despite his flaws, which

What makes a king an effective king? Is it how long they rule? No, it is actually the way in which they interact with their subjects. The way they are able to separate the personal from the political, not allowing personal feelings to interfere with his ruling. King Henry the 5th is a perfect example of this. He is able to rule his kingdom according to the kingdom's laws and doesn't let his personal relationships with his subjects to change

Shakespeare’s ‘King Henry IV Part I’ centres on a core theme of the conflict between order and disorder. Such conflict is brought to light by the use of many vehicles, including Hal’s inner conflict, the country’s political and social conflict, the conflict between the court world and the tavern world, and the conflicting moral values of characters from each of these worlds. This juxtaposition of certain values exists on many levels, and so is both a strikingly present and an underlying theme throughout the play. Through characterization Shakespeare explores moral conflict, and passage three is a prime example of Falstaff’s enduring moral disorder. By this stage in the play Hal has

He described that he couldn’t escape even if he wanted to. Through this analogy, the reader can see that Henry is reducing the soldiers to unthinking, unfeeling machines, performing their duty without taking into account the threat of injury or death. As he looks around at the faces of the rest of the soldiers in his regiment, he notices their focused commitment to the firing of their rifles. He wonders if he is the only one faced with questions of morality. While the regiment began to advance, Henry was shocked to receive a packet of letters from Wilson, who feared he would die in battle. After the battle, he is glad that he made it through the first day. He begins to lose the romantic vision of war by seeing the realities, but he starts lying to himself about who is really is.

Henry the Fifth has been noted as England’s best King throughout history. He was loved among the common people and nobles alike for his fairness, his effectiveness on the throne, his justness, and his ability to relate to people of all classes. The kings that reigned before him, especially his father King Henry IV and King John, provide a striking contrast to Hal’s attitude on the throne. Kings of the past had not experienced the life of the common people, and chose to lead their lives in the realm of the castle. As we witnessed in I Henry IV, Hal’s father even went as far to discuss this approach to ruling at length with Hal. Henry IV believed that a king was best admired and supplicated if he was kept