William Shakespeare's Henry V

William Shakespeare's Henry V

Throughout the of the play, Henry V, Shakespeare establishes Henry’s

status through a range of other characters. This essay will focus on

the linguistic features and the specific words used by these

characters to achieve their view of Henry.

In the first extract (Act I, scene I, line 22-37) the Archbishop of

Canterbury and the Bishop of Ely discuss Henry’s status as a war

mongering Christian king ‘full of grace (Christian goodness) and fair

regard’ (line 22). Throughout this extract Canterbury uses highly

loquacious language, which Shakespeare has characterised by using

various types of imagery, elevating the importance of Henry’s status

to the audience. This incorporates the use of metaphor to establish

Henry’s status on ‘commonwealth affairs’ expressing his position on

war to the audience. The metaphor ‘List his discourse of war, and you

shall hear/A fearful battle render’d you in music’ (line 43-44)

compares Henry’s talk of war to a battle of music conveying Henry as a

war-mongering king to the audience, stressed by the imperative mood of

the command verb ‘list’. The use of the second person pronoun ‘you’

effectively addresses Ely and the audience directly stressing Henry’s

status as a King of the people by using an imperative mood.

During this extract personification is used to show the audience how

Henry has become a more mature leader now that he is high status.

Canterbury uses personification such as ‘But his wildness, mortified

in him/seemed to die too’ (line 26-27) to stress how quickly Henry has

matured since his fathers death, gaining the respect of his people and

the audience increasin...

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...ollows ‘that’s the

even of it’ suggests that it is the truth that Henry is no more than a

normal person like everyone else, he simply has higher status

responsibilities but that doesn’t make it acceptable for him to be

callous.

These three extracts combined with other various scenes of the play

show Henry’s differential status through various characters points of

view. Overall the images of Henry’s qualities convey him as a high

status Christian monarch with resolute loyalty to his duties and

responsibilities, often suppressing his feelings to uphold the law and

therefore be a respected person by his people. Foregoing his

relationship with Falstaff shows his heartless nature of his status

but also conveys his power as he establishes that his country comes

before his own feelings, a typical trait of a good leader.