William Shakespeare Literature: Is Honor Worth Dying For?

Is Honor Worth Dying For?
In Henry IV, Part One, one of the main points that we see Shakespeare trying to make is the idea of honor and the significance of it. We will be analyzing what honor meant during Shakespeare’s time, connecting and comparing it to what honor meant and represented in the play, and see if any of the characters fulfill honor according to that time. I will concentrate on four specific characters of the play; King Henry, Prince Harry, Hotspur and Falstaff. To each of these characters “honor” had a different meaning from each other, they all interpret it in a different way. I also want to take into consideration of what honor means now and which of these characters are the most honorable ones or one.
During Shakespeare’s time in the Middle Ages, honor was something that only important people had; people of name, to them this was very important; it was like a way of life. According to Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages honor had a double meaning, one of these was “I would prefer to die honoured than to live without honour”. Many people today might still feel the same way, but back then we can see that people died for honor, either in war, love or anything else. We also see another meaning of honor during this time “but honour was also an office, a position, and the privileges that went with it, as at Rome where they spoke of the “career of honours”, cursus honorum, the hierarchy of high State offices”(Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages). Honor could have been represented by what you had, how you had of it and how you obtained it. Both of these meanings relate to the play Henry IV Part One. We see how King Henry feels guilty and immoral for taking the crown from Richard II, Prince Hal feels that honor is a virtue and ...

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