Theme Of Diction In Henry Iv Part 2

Everyone has nights where they just cannot fall asleep because their minds are buzzing with life’s unanswered questions. In Shakespeare’s play Henry IV, Part II, King Henry questions why he, the king, is unable to sleep while his peasants are sound asleep. Shakespeare uses specific diction to enhance the tone and imagery in King Henry’s soliloquy as well as certain syntactical choices to display Henry’s mental state. King Henry used diction to contrast between his opinions on the rich versus those he had about the poor. When describing royalty like himself he used softer words such as “perfum’d chambers of the great” (9) to emphasize how his bedroom was calming and ideal for sleeping yet he could not sleep. He then said “why liest thou with the vile in loathsome beds” (12-13) in reference to the poor to display his jealousy that “less deserving” people get to rest easy. He complains about the life of a king being difficult than the rest of the masses so he should be able to sleep. King Henry ends his soliloquy with “Deny it to a King?” (27) to show how he believes that he is entitled to get sleeps since he has the most responsibility. The diction also relates to imagery. He describes the

In the beginning, he uses short outbursts with exclamation marks as he cries out to sleep for being unfair to him. The apostrophe humanizes him because even a king is subject to emotions. As the speech continued, he began to ramble on and get emotional because he is so desperate for sleep. One sentence of his speech last eight lines and is just descriptions of the ship-boy. The length of the sentences displays how he doesn’t really have an explicit reason for being upset, he is just frustrated in the moment. This connects back to his commentary about the poor because he uses the longer sentences to complain about their ability to