Through The Eyes Of An Optimistic King
In Henry IV, Part 1, two worlds collide—the world of the newly chosen King Henry IV and his advisors and the world of thieves who spend their days at the pub in Eastcheap. Bridging the space between the two is Hal, the King's son, who travels in the company of Falstaff and the other common folks at the Boar's Head Tavern, but who really does so as part of his plan to prepare for the throne. Prince Hal is the true hero of the play and one of the most significant English warrior kings of the 15th century. Prince Hal is revolted by the extremity of Falstaff’s lack of honor and Hotspur’s fixation with honor and learns from his peers’ mistakes his own unique sense of honor which he will bring to the throne of England.
Falstaff, a man with little aspiration, lives in the world that Hal must familiarize himself with, if he is to value his future subjects. After his first meeting with Falstaff, Hal makes his view of the flabby criminal and his partners very clear: "I know you all, and will awhile uphold...the unyok'd humor of your idleness" (I.ii.202-203); it is obvious when we first meet Falstaff in the tavern that he rejects the characteristic behavior of an admirable man, which stands in sharp contrast to Hotspur. He is a thief and unashamed to admit it, “Let us be Diana’s foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon...by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal” (I.ii.26-30). In fact, during the battle of Shrewsbury, Falstaff is ruled by self-preservation and has trouble accepting how others could put honor before their own lives, “Yea, but now if honor prick me off when I come on? How then? Can honor set to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honor hath no skill in surgery then? No. What is honor? A word. What is that word honor? Air” (V.ii.131-136). Upon being challenged to fight by Douglas, Falstaff feigns death. But what clearly proves Falstaff the direct opposite of the honorable man, as...
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