I will be writing about how Henry V wins the hearts of his men. Using, five main speeches that Henry V makes.

Authors Avatar

27th September, 2005                                                                  Meha Zulfiqar Year. 11

By Shakespeare

Written by: Meha Zulfiqar

Year 11

Coursework essay

Draft 1

Due in: Wednesday, 27th September, 2005

 I will be writing about how Henry V wins the hearts of his men. Using, five main speeches that Henry V makes. I think that Henry won the hearts of his men by persuasion. Beforehand, I would like to apologize because I may talk about what ‘Henry’ says but I truly know this is what Shakespeare wrote.

In the first speech the Dauphin presented Henry V with a set of tennis balls as a joke and insult. He was suggesting that Henry was a ‘child’ and not fit for being a king. I expected Henry V to be angry and yell with frustration but I noticed a sudden silence before Henry started his speech; it seemed as though he was collecting his thoughts and thinking how to answer Dauphin’s so called, “joke.” Henry used that time exceptionally wisely, he starts off with alliteration (which he also uses in Speeches 3, 4 and 5), “Pleasant/ Present/ Pains.” These words may sound calm and polite, but all these words need to be said with clenched teeth. I found the line 290, Act One Scene 2, interesting where Henry says, “…dazzle all the eyes of France, Yea strike the Dauphin blind to look us,” Henry compares himself to the sun: so bright and successful that the Dauphin would not be able to look up to him, making the Dauphin feel inferior. Henry here plays splendidly with words as we can see throughout the play, “Turn his balls to gunstones,” Henry changes something as harmless and simple as tennis balls into weapons of destruction. Henry is often religious and spiritual in his speeches. Here he says, “and soul shall stand sore…” he attacks the Dauphin not physically but spiritually. “ Mock mock out of their dear husbands, mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down,” Henry here uses repetition to emphasize the point that he will get back at the Dauphin for his’ present’. Repetition is also used in the second and fifth’ speech.

Join now!

In the second main speech in which Henry exposes the traitors, I think he plays with the traitors before he tells the traitors that he knows about their, “sin.” Henry loves defeating people at their own game as we saw in the last speech as well. Shakespeare often makes speeches easier to understand by using comparison. In almost all of the speeches, Shakespeare uses examples of objects, which everyone can relate to, or at least can imagine. In this speech he compares the traitors to “monsters.”  Shakespeare also uses comparison greatly in the third speech. The traitors are ...

This is a preview of the whole essay