payment page
Shakespeare structured Henry IV, Part 2 as both a parallel and response to Henry IV, Part 1. Both plays center the transformation of Prince Harry from an irresponsible youth into a more mature and responsible adult, and they map this transformation in similar ways. For example, act 2 in both plays centers on the seedy district of Eastcheap and features a prank that Harry and his friend Poins play on Falstaff. In Part 1 they dressed up as “buckram men” and robbed Falstaff immediately after he had robbed some travelers. In Part 2 they dress up as serving men and spy on Falstaff in the Boar’s Head Tavern. Another example of the parallel structure of these plays relates to the tension between Harry and his father, King Henry IV. The emotional turning point of both plays revolves around a scene in which father and son pass through a confrontation and reconciliation. In Part 1 these scenes took place in the middle of the play, in act 3, scene 2. In Part 2, by contrast, Shakespeare defers this scene until act 4, scene 3. Whereas Part 1 ends with Harry defeating Hotspur and appropriating his foe’s honor to himself, Part 2 ends with his coronation as King Henry V.
Yet the structure of Part 2 doesn’t simply replicate the structure of Part 1. It also represents a response to the earlier play—and, indeed, to the first of the “Henry” plays, Richard II. Perhaps the clearest indication of the structural transformation that has taken place through these plays relates to their shifting balance of poetry and prose. Whereas Richard II is written entirely in verse, Henry IV, Part 1 introduced prose in the scenes that took place in the tavern and Gads Hill. The introduction of prose mainly functioned to reflect the world of common folks, which Shakespeare held up as a mirror to the world of the court. In Henry IV, Part 2, however, Shakespeare pushes the balance between poetry and prose even further. In this play, virtually every scene in verse is immediately followed by a scene in prose, giving these different styles equal play in the drama. The increasing shift toward prose arguably relates to the play’s theme about the debasement of language. Although Falstaff’s prose remains as vivid and inventive as ever, much of the prose in Part 2 is shallow and inane, being full of empty rhetoric, repetition, and malapropisms galore.
Because Part 2 continues the action where Part 1 left off, the play doesn’t have a clear inciting incident. That said, what kicks the play off is the figure of Rumor, who spreads false news that Hotspur defeated Harry at the Battle of Shrewsbury. Upon hearing this news, Hotspur’s father, the Earl of Northumberland, is initially cheered, only to be completely devastated when he learns that Hotspur is, in fact, dead. In his grief, he withdraws from the rebellion, which echoes his previous refusal to lead his troops to battle at the end of Part 1—a decision that contributed to Hotspur’s death.
Northumberland’s withdrawal impacts the first of the play’s two major conflicts: the civil strife between the king and the rebels. Following his retreat, the remaining rebel leaders—the Archbishop of York as well as Lords Hastings and Mowbray—debate what to do next. Their conflict with the king comes to a head in act 4, scene 1, when the Earl of Westmoreland and John of Lancaster trick them into disbanding their army by promising their grievances with the king will be addressed. But as soon as the rebel army has been dismantled, John orders the arrest and execution of the rebel leaders. So ends the civil war.
The play’s second major conflict, which manifests in the tension between Prince Harry and King Henry, also gets resolved in act 4. Even though Harry rose to the occasion and rode into battle in the latter half of Part 1, Henry continues to consider his son an irresponsible reprobate. Meanwhile, Harry struggles to manage the delicate public performance he’s devised for his self-transformation into a king worthy of the title. He feels genuine heartache about his father’s grave illness, but he puts on a public front to make it look like he doesn’t care. The tension between father and son comes to a head in act 4, scene 3, when Harry arrives at his father’s deathbed. After a misunderstanding that leads to a confrontation, Harry finally makes it plain to his father that he respects and fears the responsibility conferred by the crown. With this misunderstanding cleared up, Henry’s apocalyptic visions of the future cease, and he advises his son on how to rule well. Henry dies offstage between acts 4 and 5. He takes his final breaths in a chamber called “Jerusalem,” which obliquely fulfills the prophecy that predicted he would die in “the Holy Land.”
The falling action of Part 2 fulfills another prophecy: the one Harry made in act 2, scene 4 of Part 1. There, Harry makes an ominous promise to banish Falstaff from his presence. Finally, in act 5, scene 5 of Part 2, this prophecy comes to fruition. Harry, having recently been crowned as king, has Falstaff forcefully removed and forbidden from coming within ten miles of the king. Though cruel, Harry’s rejection of Falstaff represents the final act in his self-transformation from reprobate to prince to king. In banishing his old friend and mentor, Harry also symbolically rejects unlawfulness and disorderly conduct. In their stead, he courts the law and order associated with his new mentor: the Lord Chief Justice. So begins the reign of King Henry V.
