Analysis Of Cardinal Wolsey Henry Viii

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While watching a horror film, it is expected that the audience would scream rather than laughing hysterically, right? This is because a scream is the expected response that someone may have in that specific scenario. However, in literature, demonstrating the responses that characters have is mostly done through speaking their mind and declaring their thoughts in order to get the point across. A perfect example of this kind of response exists in William Shakespeare's Henry VIII when Cardinal Wolsey responds to his dismissal from court. What makes his response even more impecable is that Wolsey is trying to express more than one feeling, thus making his response a complex one. Through the use of allusion, metaphors, similes, and a bitter tone, Shakespeare conveys Wolsey's bitterness toward no longer having to perform his duties and that he also desires the demise of the prince. …show more content…

In the former half, Shakespeare makes use of multiple metaphors and similes in order to showcase how angry Wolsey is about being dismissed. In one such instance, he compares hopes to blossoming fruit and the death of those hopes with a "killing frost." Wolsey is being bitter here since he works up the expectation of the hopes only to have them killed when the killing frost, most likely referring to a person, arrives. Not only does Wolsey mention the hopes that he possessed, but also of the struggles he experienced in order to get where he is in that moment of time. Shakespeare has Wolsey say that "I have ventur’d, like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, this many summers in a sea of glory, but far beyond my depth," and through the use of a simile, demonstrates the struggles faced by Cardinal

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