Shakespeare

996 Words2 Pages

The mood of the court scene of Henry IV in 3.2 is ominously intimate, grave and that of disappointment, however, the Kings upbraiding of Prince Henry results in the mood of scene 3.2 to finish as passionate, endearing and also full of dislike. In this scene Shakespeare manages to exude a grave, sombre and ominous mood through the Kings sheer disappointment of his son, his hyperbolically earnest language and the iambic pentameter used in the Kings blank verses. When Hal enters the court room, his father announces “Lords, give us leave”. By asking the Lords to leave would create a hollow emptiness to the room, which would emphasise the ominous and private mood to the court; this also gives a sense of foreshadowing for what is to come. After the exeunt of the Lords, the in control King begins by saying Hal is his punishment for deposing Richard II. In a hyperbolically earnest way he snarls to Hal, “I know not whether God will have it so, / For some displeasing service I have done, / That, in his secret doom, out of my blood”. The language used contains unrhymed iambic pentameter and a large amount of one-syllable words that gives a stressed beat to each word, which results in the accentuation of King Henry’s thorough displeasure of the topic at hand. Furthermore, these long subordinate clauses of Henry IV’s speeches create tension and a sense of gravity to the mood. When the King is divulging on his sincere anger for the way Hal is living his life, he uses grave religious metaphors for his “mistreadings”. Examples of this are: “the rod of heaven”, “to punish my mistreadings” and “I know not whether God will have it so”. These spiritually styled examples place additional emphasis on the King’s deep disappointment with his son. The Kin... ... middle of paper ... ...dnight”, this solemn, sombre and grave mood is heightened by the contrast between light and dark. When the King is beginning to speak to Hal he is filmed from a side on portrait of his face, which is only a silhouette due to the darkness around him and the light behind; this is called chiaroscuro. The consequence of this is you can only see the outline of his crown, face and moving lips, which stress the solemn mood that is hanging over the scene. The physical actions by the characters add to this considerable. In the BBC production, King Henry IV scruffs up the Prince and rips off the hat that he is wearing. Afterwards, once the Prince weakly apologises the King slaps him hard across his face, which the sound of it echoes in the vast room. The effect that this violence is that gives enormous power to King Henry’s actions, words and emotions. To summarize, the mood

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