Shakespeare HENRY IV PLAY

1 Henry IV is one in a series of historical plays focuses on three monarchs - Henry IV , Henry V , and Henry VI - and their rule over the small kingdom of England . However , of the three , only the first two had successful reigns . The star of this will be King Henry IV , on whom Shakespeare writes a two-part play , of which the focus will be on the first part

1 Henry IV has a dual plot . The first concerns King Henry IV and his strained relationship with his son , Prince Harry , also called Hal

. The second concerns a rebellion being plotted against the king by the Percy family , a noble family whose male members are angry at the refusal of King Henry to acknowledge his debt to them . Shakespeare spends the majority of the play alternating between these two plots , until he eventually brings them together at the end of the play

According to critic F .J .G . Meehan , what makes this play unique is that Shakespeare added to and revised his historical sources to create contrasts ' in the play (Meehan , 115 . More specifically , Meehan uses his entire critique of the play to focus on the contrasts within Prince Hal , between Prince Hal and Hotspur - Harry Percy - as well as contrasts with regard to the scenes and settings . Thus , the entire purpose of Meehan 's article is to demonstrate how well Shakespeare utilizes the concept of contrast throughout the play

The first contrast to be discussed is that found within Prince Hal himself . As Meehan states , it is generally agreed upon by scholars that the stories concerning Prince Hal 's youthful exploits had some basis in truth . Shakespeare willingly accepted this view of Prince Hal , but according to Meehan , he did so with a difference . Throughout the play he takes pains to impress us with the belief that Henry is in the slums but not of them , that he associates with the scum and riffraff of London society and yet he keeps himself unspotted of the mad world in which he takes his pleasure (Meehan , 117 . Shakespeare has Prince Hal verbalize this aspect of his personality in the following manner

I know you all , and will awhile uphold / The unyoked humor of your idleness / Yet herein will I imitate the sun / Who doth permit the base contagious clouds / To smother up his beauty from the world That , when he again to be himself / Being wanted , he may be more wondered at / By breaking through the foul and ugly mist / Of vapors that did seem to strangle him / And , like bright metal on a sullen ground / My reformation , glitt 'ring o 'er my fault / Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes / Than that which hath no foil to set it off / I 'll so offend to make offense a skill / Redeeming time when men think least I will (1 .2 .165-173 , 183-188

The impression one gets is that Prince Hal is revealing to the reader /audience his character and...