- Compare and contrast how Shakespeare presents the changing fortunes of Hal and Hotspur The main theme of Henry IV Part 1 concerns the changing fortunes of Hal and Hotspur. Hal, at the beginning of the play, is a renegade prince. He can be found drinking in taverns with thieves and commoners.
- Shakespeare uses Prince Hal and Hotspur’s characters to show how much more superior Prince Hal is as a leader of men than Hotspur is. Shakespeare portrays Hotspur as somewhat of a one-dimensional character, whereas he portrays Prince Hal in a different way, but as a complex, multi-dimensional leader.
Hal and Hotspur are one of the two most important and instrumental characters in Henry IV Part One. From the outset, Shakespeare intends to set up a comparison between the two rivals. King Henry IV, Hal’s father, compares them in the very first scene of the play. After outlining the situation regarding the civil war in the country, Henry tells Westmoreland that Hotspur is “the theme of honour’s tongue” (1. 1. 80).
The Prince learns –good and bad- from Falstaff and this is purposely done by Shakespeare to give the parallel identity that defines Prince Hal. Both Falstaff and Hotspur are considered to be foils. However, I consider Falstaff as somewhat of a mirroring image of the other characters, especially Hotspur and Prince Hal.
This, together with blatant criticism of Hal’s reckless and debauched manner, gives the audience the impression, and indeed this is later stated when Glendower enters, that Henry wishes that Hotspur was his son instead of Hal. As well as introducing the theme of honour, it focuses the audience’s attention on comparing these two men. In contrast to the first scene, the second scene in Act one shows Hal in the tavern along with his rebellious companion Falstaff. This scene illustrates what the King refers to regarding his son’s behaviour.
We learn that Hal is witty and energetic, and gains pleasure in teasing his old friend about his overindulgence. In Act one scene three, we see the King again, this time in the Council Chamber with the rebels, including Henry Percy, otherwise known as Hotspur. Hotspur refuses to surrender some prisoners whom he gained following a previous battle. We learn that, through his demand for Mortimer’s release, Hotspur is loyal. He is also very courageous, albeit tactless and undiplomatic. Te audience realises that this would make him an unsuitable leader. However, Hotspur does seem to be a preferable leader to Hal.
Prince Hal And Falstaff Relationship
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Further on in the play, Prince Hal partakes in a highway robbery. Falstaff orchestrates and carries out a robbery at Gad’s Hill, and then Hal proceeds to rob Falstaff following this. This incident fails to blemish Hal’s character. It does, however, show his reckless and genuinely base behaviour. He recognises this when he proclaims that ‘I have sounded the very base-string of humility” (2. 4. 5-6). Hal undergoes a dramatic change in Act three scene two. During this difficult interview with his father, he shows himself to be contrite in admitting his faults.
The King compares Hal with Hotspur, whom he claims has more right to rule the country than Hal because of his many ‘high deeds’ (3. 2. 107) in battle. This would have motivated Hal to reform since he would not take kindly to this insult. Hal promises to reform and to “be more myself” (3. 2. 93), indicating his previous persona was a false fai? ade masking the true Hal. In the sense that both Hal and Hotspur will strive to pursue their goals. In contrast to the fact that Hotspur’s temper would deem him an unsuitable ruler, Hal possesses admirable diplomacy.
For instance, in this Act he performed a diplomatic concealment of his true intentions regarding the Gad’s Hill incident, and an awareness of the public ‘effect’ he has to achieve as a responsible Prince of Wales following the interview with his father. Further on in the play, we learn that Hotspur is very keen to fight. For instance, the first line in Act four scene three is by Hotspur that “We’ll fight him (Hal) tonight”. This trait is not desirable in a king. In contrast, in Act five scene one, Hal offers to fight Hotspur in single combat.
This brave and valiant statement was not said in earnest for a fight, but a noble gesture rather than risking the lives of thousands of men. This shows that Hal has matured. In contrast to Hal’s character at the start of the play, he is very much more sensible. The audience see Hal here as a skilled politician, like his father, offering a sensible solution to the grave problem of civil war that plagued the country. To conclude, at the start of the play, I would have deemed Hal to be a most unsuitable King, and Hotspur as one to whom the title would be most suited.
However, during the course of the play, Shakespeare constructs a complex character development for both Hal and Hotspur. At the end of the play, after Hal’s triumphant reformation, I would argue that he is by far a more appropriate leader. He possesses all the necessary qualities, diplomacy, courage and honour to name but a few. Hotspur is impulsive, albeit brave, undiplomatic and tactless. To have Hal fighting with him instead of in opposition to him only strengthens Henry’s position regarding his previously uncertain title to the throne.
Both Freund and Rousseau describe society in terms of sacrifices made by the individual and the benefits he receives in return. Rousseau speaks in terms of the social contract, a rational agreement between people. Freud's civilization is an instrument for the repression of instincts of the aggressive type, but a 'process in the service of Eros.'
Rousseau's community is essentially synthetic, resulting from human reason, not instinct. The group is a problem-solving device, for the general good, to overcome obstacles to human existence which the individual alone could not handle (book I, chapter 6, pg. 59). Humans form groups in order to accomplish tasks for the general good, but there is always the possibility that the ideas of the group are mistaken, so in actuality, society may not always work for the general good. A democracy would be a nearly ideal form of decision-making, because it is representative of the general will, an idea which Rousseau holds as fundamental to a well-run nation. The general will should be the basis of government. A law is an expression of the general will, and since each citizen is a part of the general will, to obey the law means only to obey your own will. Rousseau's contention is that one must not sacrifice to be a citizen - or not quite: the individual sacrifices his particular freedom but then gets it back in the form of a greater general freedom.
Freud's society is formed in part because of mutual need, but there is more. The aggressive instincts would pull groups apart if it weren't for the Eros in man, the instinct to unite people into groups; additionally, scapegoats are available for left-over aggression. Society is an uneasy equilibrium of these three forces. War is an example of just how uneasy the balance is. Freud's civilization has no real contract in the sense of Rousseau, but he does make an indirect contract which forces the desire of the individual to conform to society's commands. 'The super-ego takes the place of the parental function, and thenceforward observes, guides, and threatens the ego in just the same way as the parents acted to the child before' (A.M., pg. 89). In this way the societal values (which are embodied in the laws) are transmitted through the parents to the individual. Thus, one automatically submits to the repression of desires because the super-ego is a cultural product. Freud's goal here is the repression and sublimation of natural desires, for these make co-existence impossible. Sublimation is more effective and less wasteful than repression.
'Every member of the community,' says Rousseau, 'gives himself to it ... with all his resources, including all his goods.' How then can Rousseau keep up his idea of something for nothing? 'The state, vis-a-vis its own members, becomes master of all their goods ...' The definition of vis-a-vis in Webster's leads me to think that he means that the state and the citizen operate together in the custodianship of property. In a sense, then, the state owns property through the individual, so that he has not given it up. Rousseaus's social contract is a considerably more complicated concept than Freud's.
According to Freud, we make sacrifices to join civilization; we must suffer our natural instincts to be repressed. And Freudian society has benefits; that of 'the advantages of work in common' for the common good. Rousseau's society either does or doesn't require sacrifices from us; I think he wants to say that it doesn't. And Rousseau's society has advantages; 'the state has been established to achieve ... the common good.' Freud sees civilization as the answer to some of the problems of the human condition; Rousseau also sees that 'the human race will perish if it does not change its mode of existence' into the state. Both Freud and Rousseau, then, see the state as saving us from the problems of the human condition, but each sees the problems of the human condition somewhat differently, or emphasizes different aspects of the problems of the human condition, and so constructs the saving state in a somewhat different light.
Freund, Hobbes, and the Metaphor of the AntOr,
All about Ants (an animalistic, albeit apt, alliteration): an altogether asinine, and amazingly anemic, articleIn their considerations of the origin of civilization, both Freud and Hobbes turn to ants to illuminate human society. There are both similarities and differences in their explanations of why the state is not like the anthill, which they both consider to be at least partially ideal (perhaps because both have materialistic tendancies). Both view man's nature negatively and see the community as the cure for the human condition.
The first of the six reasons Hobbes gives for the ant-gap is that men have ambition, a 'joy consisting in comparing himself with other men,' which makes a person work sometimes against others, instead of working for the common good (both Freud and Hobbes think that comparing one's self with others is fundamentally an unsympathetic atitude, against Rousseau and others). Freud would generally agree with this, restating it as manifestation of the Oedipus complex and the outwardly directed aggressive instincts.
The second reason given in the Leviathan for the ant-gap is that men have ideas of 'honor and dignity' which are connected with possession (a person 'owns' these things) and from possession arises envy and jealousy and finally war. Freud's final ideas about human conflict credit uncontrolled instinct with the origin of war. Freud says that aggression creates property, i.e., war leads to possession, while Hobbes says that possession leads to war.
Hobbes' third reason is that men have specialization and that some men are leaders, whose reasonings have lead them to different ideas and conflict results when these diverse thoughts are put into implementation.
His fourth reason is that ants have no speech and so cannot lie or provoke unrest.
In his fifth reason, he apparently attempts to make the point that, unprovoked, an ant will not attack his fellow, while humans spend their periods of peace in brewing maliciousnes and discontent.
The sixth reason for the ant-gap given in Leviathan is that ants are by nature cooperative, whereas humans live together by synthesis, and something 'else besides covenant' is required 'to make their agreement constant and lasting, which is common power' to enforce unity. Freud does not agree, because he says that the community is an organic creation, the expression of eros which is the instinct to unite people. But Freud does opine that society needs scapegoats.
The ant comparison is one which could be made only with this kind of animal, because some animals exhibit possessive and individualistic tendancies. Ants are not lazy. They carefully identify objects, scrupulously distinguish between things that are alike and things that are different, and make sure that everything is in the place where it belongs.
Both of these thinkers agree that communal living requires sacrifice. Hobbes tells us to give up our power and instinct to survive. Freud asks us to surrender similar concepts in the repression of natural instincts, that is, to develop the ego and the super-ego to govern the id.
This is the Anknupfungspunkt of these two Weltanschauungen: that the state is a solution to the human dilema, but not a free one.
and Honor
Falstaff's definition of honor is a very functional one. Honor cannot mend a wound, is nothing more than a word of air, does the dead no good, and cannot abide by the living, being vulnerable to slander. Honor is merely a painted insignia, an external token of non-intrinsic traits. So he defines honor as used in the sense that Hotspur uses it (and rejects it). But in so refuting the value of this type of honor, he demonstrates in word and action that he has his own version of honor.
Falstaff's ethics are utilitarian: its goal and its means are self-preservation. He serves this ideal with integrity and consistnacy throughout the plot. This theory of action is not as egocentric as it may, at first glance, seem. To look out for one's own existence is to faster the almost divine spark of life in man - to be 'the true and perfect image of life.' The powerful phrasing (original 'Life' probably capitalized) would certainly carry almost religious connotations to Elizabethian people. And Shakespeare uses, at the end of the play, one of the most powerful western artistic (mythical) symbols: the resurrection motif. Death, the appearance of, an aura of, or a symbol of, is removed from a character. This is done to Falstaff in a striking scene. Such a motif certainly shows that the Bard intended Sir Jack to be received as a positive character, a protagonist, a good guy. (Note, however, that both the death and the resurrection are phony; so we are left to ask whether Flastaff may live a 'counterfeit' life even as he had a 'counterfeit' death.) He may commit an understandable surrender to human weakness at the end in stabbing an already dead body and claiming credit for the slaying, and he may not have performed in the usual manner on the battlefield, but he did see through the useless style of honor presented by the younger Percy, and his actions were entirely consistent with his own code. Not only are these actions tolerated by just about everybody in the play, but he continues in his habits at the end of the play, with no sign of stopping.
Percy's honor is based on receiving external praise, a corruption of honor. If honor is based on external things, and not on intrinsic qualities and the action they cause, then honor can be put on anyone. This type of honor also metamorphoses its victim into a petty praise-seeker. Hal points out this (II.iv) in mimicking a body-count. Hotspur dies and is discredited - slain by the main character in the narrative. No-one, on stage or off, mourns him, or even misses him. Through out the play he is censured by many, from his first stage appearance (I.iii).
Compare And Contrast Hal And Hotspur Vs
Hal is a practical person, who would like to carry out Falstaff's honor system, but the practicalities of being a future king do not permit such a lifestyle. He must take Falstaff's abstract theory - Falstaff lives on the level of theory, choices and consequences being clear cut, like a flow chart - and make it practical for himself. He cannot afford to take great liberties in personal conduct, but he cannot compromise his integrity too far, for Hotspur is one who compromised too far in an attempt to make honor a strictly practical affair. 'I am not of Percy's mind,' says Hal. When Hal allows Sir Jack to claim credit for Hotspur's death (V.iv) and allows John to perform a perfunctory glory-gaining role (V.v.), these are deliberately modest (non-praise-seeking) actions, not seeking the type of honor which Hotspur sought. Why? Hal has learned from Sir Jack: praise, and Percy's style of honor, cannot heal a wound, are useless.
Hal and Falstaff are of one mind regarding the Ersatz honor. Hal's acquisition of honor is closely linked with Falstaff: his soliloquous plans for reformation are made in the first tavern-style scene, a scene in which (Falstaff?) appears, and long before Percy makes any kind of appearance. The product which Hal eventually becomes is one shaped from the beginning on by Sir Jack. Falstaff carries a theoretical ideal of honor, Hotspur has a corrupted and perverted honor, and Hal tries to make honor workable. In doing this, he may acquire some of the appearances of external honor (III.ii), but these fripperies are fleeting.
Compare And Contrast Prince Hal And Hotspur
Falstaff proves to be one originator of honor, passing it on to Hal, who uses it in a slightly altered form, having nothing to do with the purely external forms of honor.