The Role Of Prince Hal In Shakespeare's Henry IV Part I

Despite its title, Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part I focuses primarily on his eldest son, Prince Hal, later known as Henry V. While Shakespeare draws on the conventions of morality plays and the central conflict could be seen as a psychomachia, or “battle for the soul,” over Hal’s character, in Part I at least, Hal is not forced to commit to one role and reject all others. In fact, Hal’s greatest strength both as a character and a prince is his ability to succeed in a variety of roles. Henry IV Part I is not so much focused on developing Hal as it is about showing off his range and flexibility and how that sets him apart from those around him. Shakespeare achieves this through a series of smaller conflicts between Hal and three other characters:

From the play’s beginning to its end, Hotspur is presented as a standard Hal consistently falls short of reaching. When Hotspur’s achievements on the battlefield are called, “a conquest for a prince to boast of,” it only serves to emphasize that the actual prince, Hal, is not making such conquests (I. 1. 78). King Henry directly compares the two, calling Hotspur “the theme of honor’s tongue” while lamenting that “riot and dishonor stain the brow of my young Harry” and highlighting Hotspur’s role as a foil by saying it is “by looking on the praise of” Hotspur that he sees his own son’s shortcomings (I. 1. 81, 86-87, 85). However, while Hotspur is highly praised by King Henry, his own father, Lord Northumberland, calls him

Although King Henry harps on the ways Hal is unlike him, it is evident through Hal’s soliloquy at the end of Act I Scene 2 that he is very much his father’s son. Hal is not only just as much of a politician as his father, but he is a politician of the same kind: one mindful of his image and its effect on others. Henry’s boast that he “did pluck allegiance from men’s hearts” is not unlike Hal’s claim that he will “command all the good lads in Eastcheap” when he is king (III.2.52; II.4.13-14). The two even use similar metaphors in their speeches. Henry calls his presence a “robe pontifical,” and Hal says that he can “throw off” his “loose behavior” (III.2.56; I.2.212). Not only is Hal more like his father than Henry believes, but he surpasses him in two important ways. The first is not even intentional; Hal will inherit the throne whereas Henry took it. When Henry says, “For all the world, As thou art to this hour was Richard then When I from France set foot at Ravenspurgh; And even as I was then is Percy now,” he intends to insult Hal, but the comparison also highlights that Henry was as Percy is, a rebel, and Hal will be as Richard was, a legitimate king (III.2.93-96). Shakespeare plays with this concept again when Douglas mistakes Henry at Shrewsbury for another “That counterfeit’st the person of a king” (V.4.27). Because Henry took the throne, he is a “counterfeit”