Honor in Henry IV

Honour in Henry IV

Honor is one of those concepts that is seldom defined. One’s reputation is based on his or her honor, integrity, honesty, and purity. William Shakespeare’s Henry IV is a one of his many plays that deal with the varying ideas of honor, as well as issues of courage, loyalty, and ambition, interposing examples of dishonor, weakness, and the deceitful plots among both the drunkards and noblemen. Shakespeare utilizes suggestive metaphors to create illusions, imagery, and to reinforce the different views of the major issues people were faced with in his time and in ours. His plays often focus on the imagery, either on some obvious important symbol, or some image pattern that recurs throughout the work. Readers are then pushed and pulled through different conceptions and actions of the word, so much so, it gets to the point where it becomes clear that one of the key motifs of the play is an ironic exploration of what that word really means. Falstaff begs explanation, “What is honor? A word. What is in that word “honor”?”, just as the readers do during the course of the play (5.1.133-134).

King Henry IV begins the play with a speech of how worn out he is from fighting. The King is relieved that the “civil butchery” has come to an end and he can now sit comfortably in his role as the defender of Christendom and of England, “Forthwith a power of English shall we levy, Whose arms were molded in their mother’s womb To chase these pagans in those holy fields Over whose acres walked those blessèd feet Which fourteen hundred years ago were nailed. For our advantage on the bitter cross”(1.1.22-27).

Although he’s ceremonial in his presentation of himself, liable to stand on formalities, h...

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...cription of honorable behavior? Shakespeare has given a number of distinct definitions of what honor is and how people have the choice to act and react honorably or not. To some, being honorable means you are “into the good thoughts of the world”, which is as true as the sea “being governed” by the “noble and chaste mistress of the moon” (1.3.182 & 1.2.28-29). However, it could be that the “fat-witted” Falstaff had it right when he said, “the better part of valor discretion”? (5.4.119-120). Honor might be best defined, that, it is whatever feels right to each individual inside and not what one can boast of. There is no honor in bragging and no honor in proving oneself to others, because you then leave the decision up to the judges, defeating the whole point. Shakespeare realizes this and that is why he gives no clear definition of honor. Honor is one’s own perception.