Emotion In Shakespeare's Play

All humans are slaves. Not slaves in the conventional, forced labor, manor, but enslaved to their biological urges, more specifically, emotional desires. Human emotions play a large part in driving everyday actions and often lead to selfish motivations and unforeseen consequences. In literature, the application raw emotion is seen to be fatal flaw in many characters. When authors try to present this emotion, it is essential for them to make said characters relatable for the reader through a variety of characters. William Shakespeare was particularly adept at this. In fact, according to the Huntington Library, “The multitude of characters in Shakespeare’s plays encapsulates universal emotions and timeless truths” (Huntington). It was this skill

Hal explicitly states his intentions when he says, “So when this loose behavior I throw off /And pay the debt I never promised, /By how `much better than my word I am,” (1.2.215-217). While Hal states his plan, he does not state his motivation. One possible such motivation would be Hal’s desire to grow as a person would be to please his father. Hal may be a prince, but as a son, he faces the same compulsory need to please his father as any other human being. Lawrence Kutner elaborates further recognizing, “All young children want to please their parents. Doing so brings them the affection and attention on which they thrive. Yet by the time they reach adulthood some are convinced that nothing they do is good enough to warrant praise from their parents.” Hal’s age and stature in life necessitates a greater action so as to receive praise from his father. This provides a more in-depth explanation for why Hal had to drop so low before he becomes great. It makes sense that Hal had to sink low for the transition to be noticeable, but now it is known that Hal had to sink so low for the resulting change to be great enough to receive recognition from his Father. While Hal’s transformation is honorable and ultimately beneficial, his motives for changing his life was not motivated by a genuine desire to improve, but rather a desperate attempt to gain

Hotspur immediately associates a man with good grooming to be one of less worth. As such, he severely undermines the power that the messenger represents, a direct conduit to the king. Through his arrogance and lack of acceptance pushes him to, essentially, disobey the king. The scene with the messenger is a window into the mind of Hotspur as conveyed by Marvin Bennett Krims in his book, The Mind According to Shakespeare: Psychoanalysis in the Bard’s Writing. Krims illustrates that the messenger’s flaunting of his feminine side, “conveys a message that Hotspur finds intolerable: man is part woman” (Krims). Krims continues that Hotspur’s subsequent dismissing of the messenger reflects, “his rejection of femininity in a man, and by extension, the femininity within himself” (Krims). Hotspur’s rejection of femininity closes his ability to interact with different types of people. By extension, it ultimately alters his entire decision-making process, permanently sealing him making from nondiscriminatory decisions. Hotspur’s application of emotion into the decision-making process make him bombastic and dangerous to those around him as he is incapable of making a decision not influenced by personal and inner conflicts. As the play progresses, Henry IV’s knowledge of how to control the people becomes a larger and larger factor. As such, his capabilities as a Machiavel increase exponentially. Henry’s Machiavellian attitudes towards leadership