Persuasive Techniques Used by Henry in Act Four Scene Three in Shakespeare's Henry V

642 Words2 Pages

Persuasive Techniques Used by Henry in Act Four Scene Three in Shakespeare's Henry V

Henry's speech is well prepared; he uses various key features in a

persuasive leader. Before Henry starts of he is able to turn weakness

into strengths. He immediately identifies what is wrong with his

soldiers, the larger French army. King Henry commences by giving his

soldiers confident advice, he says 'if we are marked to die, we are

enough to do our country's loss.' Essentially this means that the

fewer who die the better for our country, because the less loss of

lives. The key feature that Henry uses is that he never mentions the

word 'lose.' Since that is a negative expression. Soon after he talks

about his side winning, 'and if to live, the fewer men, the greater

share of honour.' This signifies that if they win the battle and live,

Henry's soldiers will have extra honour because they had fewer men to

begin with.

Within Henry's sentence there is a lot of rhythm and balance. One of

the key words in his dialogue is 'honour' because in Elizabethan times

honour was bound up with ideas of nobility and manliness. Henry has

constant reference to the divine, to get permission for his actions,

'God's will.' Additionally there is various uses of semantic fields,

associated with religion, God, covet, honour and sin; all taken from

the bible. Henry applies a very close relationship term, 'cuz.'

Meaning his soldiers are in close contact with Henry. 'Oh, do not wish

one more!' This is an exclamatory phrase. This injects emotion into

his speech. The biggest fear to Henry is desertion of soldiers, he

cleverly emphasises this point by offering free passage ...

... middle of paper ...

... to royalty. Additionally the relationship

between Henry and his nobles are friendly and caring. The last

persuasive technique Henry exploits is the word 'man hood,'

deliberately to suggest manliness could only be earned by achieving

honour in battle.

In conclusion, there are various persuasive techniques brought into

play by Henry. Henry uses inspiration in his speech. He can coin

phrases that will designate in a mind. Many leaders use Henry's

attributes. Henry boosts a lot of morale in his speech and confidents.

There is quite a lot of turn around and Henry never uses negative

comments. Henry has close relationship with his men, by using a

variety of strong terms. Henry's lecture has reference to the superior

being to give more assurance. Furthermore King Henry gives divine

inspiration to many leaders now days.

Open Document