Importance Of Father-Son Relationship In Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part II

Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part II concludes the father-son conflict between Henry IV and Prince Hal, the heir to the English throne. With the backdrop of the latter part of King Henry IV’s reign, Henry IV continues to worry that his rowdy son, Prince Hal, will undo all the work he had done thus far. In addition to that, Henry IV struggles with his guilt of forcibly taking the throne from Richard II. Prince Hal, meanwhile, plans his grand reformation, while he continues to coarsely mingle with the likes of John Falstaff, Ned Poins, and others. This conflict comes to its head in Act IV. Prince Hal volunteers to attend to his ailing father, and, upon thinking him dead, takes the crown up from his father’s pillow and exits thinking the royal …show more content…
The fulfillment Hal achieves when his father dies points to that moment as climactic, and yet the moment when Hal rejects Falstaff effectively demonstrates Hal’s complete ‘noble change’ and concludes the relationship between Hal and Falstaff. This other father-son relationship in the play creates a different context in which to view Henry IV’s monologue. While Henry IV’s monologue expresses dread of the moment when his son takes the throne [(“O, thou wilt be a wilderness again, / Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants!” (4.5.139-140)], Falstaff looks forward to Hal’s kingship for his own advancement. Still, Falstaff has his own share of insults against Prince Hal, as in lines 197-198 in the fourth scene of the second act: “A good shallow young fellow, he would have made a good pantler; he would a’ chipped bread well.” The scene proceeds as Prince Hal confronts Falstaff about his life and the insults, to which Falstaff denies his words and the relationships starts the downhill path. Despite its importance in Part II, this relationship takes center stage in Henry IV, Part I, which leads to the question of how the monologue fits within the series of