How does Henry's use of language reflect his position in Act IV, Scene 1, lines 203-257?

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How does Henry’s use of language reflect his position in Act IV, Scene 1, lines 203-257?

        This extract comes at the lowest part of Shakespeare’s play ‘Henry V’ with the dramatist reflecting on the main character’s positions, as a King and as a human being. At this point in the plot the English army are ‘but a weak and sickly guard’ (according to Henry himself in act 3 scene 7), desolate in enemy territory with great certainty that their campaign against the French has come to an end. This causes Henry to become introspective, analysing himself as a leader and conveying to the audience his complex positions during this troubling time through a range of linguistic features used in the soliloquy.

        Throughout the soliloquy Shakespeare uses repetition to emphasise the demands of Henry’s kingly responsibilities. Through his conflicting impulses he repeats words to make sense of his troubling emotions. The repetition of the familiar possessive pronoun ‘our’ can be found at the start of this extract were Henry paraphrases what is said by the soldiers, Bates and Williams, earlier in the scene, ‘Let us our lives, our souls, our debts our careful wives, our children and our sins, lay on the king!’(line 203-204). The repetition of ‘our’ and the imperative mood of the command verb ‘let’ suggests that responsibility is always put back onto the king. Shakespeare does this to imply that the King must bear responsibility for the moral state of all soldiers fighting for their country who die in battle. This further more implies to the audience that with great power, comes great responsibility and in turn comes the burdens of kingship. With the burden of Kingship, Henry embodies himself in the view put forward by his subordinates through ‘our’, portraying his inner conflict through its repetition and therefore suggesting his position as a King and as a human at this point in time as insecure with a guilt-ridden conscience.

        The repetition of the abstract noun ‘ceremony’ is the main theme of the speech given by Henry with which he questions its values and his role within it. For instance ‘Save ceremony, save general ceremony?/And what art thou, thou idle ceremony?’ (line 212-213). The repetition of this word emphasises that with ceremony comes the duties of the throne, which is somewhat of a burden. It also suggests to the audience that the burden of ceremony has concealed Henry’s human qualities. Henry repeats the second person pronoun ‘thou’ to denote ceremony in an affectionate way and then deems it ‘idle’, connoting that it is worthless and foolish. Shakespeare’s specific lexical choice to put these two contrasting words together suggests an attempt to create sarcasm. Therefore Henry’s sarcastic mood conveys his bitter feelings for ceremony and suggests to the audience that his position as a human is trapped by tradition.  

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        The use of rhetorical questions which is evident throughout the entire extract has been used by Shakespeare to convey Henry’s uncertainty and doubtful state of mind, once again suggesting his personal insecurity to the audience. An example of a rhetorical question can be found in lines 214 to 215 “What kind of god art thou, that suffer’st more/Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers?” Shakespeare’s noun choice of ‘god’ to which Henry compares himself to, has been carefully constructed to remind us of his ‘heavenly’ qualities which are first established through Canterbury’s speech in act 1, scene 1. Shakespeare ...

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