Act 2   Scene 2

Meet the Saint Nicholas clerks

        One way to understand this scene is to see this comic sub plot providing supports on the main plot of the play.

         For the Elizabethans, belief in the Great Chain of Being were still much in evidence.  Not everyone liked this rigidly ordered system. Here at Act (2,2) we meet a group of people who are fascinated by the thought of going beyond boundaries set by the chain of being. The scenery of double robbery contributes to the picture of civil disorder in England, which is the sub plot of the play.

         The main plot is the political disorder of England, it introduced to us through the first words of the play: ” So shaken as we are, so wan with care” Act (1,1) King Henry faces attacks from the Welsh and the Scots, and his former allies, the Percy family who rule the North of England, plotting rebellion against him. Another parallel scene of disorder shows at Act (3,1), when the three rebels argue how to divide the kingdom between them. The theme of order breaking down continues in Act (4,1) Hotspur vows destruction of King Henry’ army:

” They come like sacrifices in their trim,

And to the fire-eyed maid of smoky war

All hot and bleeding will we offer them…

 Meet and ne’er part till one drop down a corpse”

       The tavern scene closely mirrors and echoes the main political plot of King Henry and the rebels. Shakespeare deepens the theme of disorder in his comic plot. Just as Hotspur threatens political chaos, so Falstaff and his tavern colleagues represent the overthrow of authority as they lie, steal and seek personal advantage. They challenge and subvert the natural order in the society. Act (2,2) is an ironic portrait of the theme: the old order has broken down, no man trusts another, thieves cannot be true one to another! Everyone in the land, from the highest to the lowest, is a highwayman of some sort.

      To think who or what makes a better king.  I vote for prince Hal. He shows he is a true man with an impressive grace at the end of the play. He is sensible because he knows the ordinary people of England. He gains the common touch through joking and playing among the lower class. His speech shows he is shrewd and practical.

In contrary, Hotspur seems very self obsessed and detached. It’s hard to be impressed by his reckless optimism. Though Hal is ambitious and an optimist, he is not hotheaded and impetuous. Very self opinionated and thoroughly objectionable is Worcester identifies Hotspur.

       My teacher showed his argument for Falstaff’s dismissal as merely the prey of gunpowder. Not every one born with the gift of tenderness and sympathy for others.

Hal is definitely not one of the few. There is a particular tension in the relationship between Hal and Falstaff as I read I feel, a kind of simultaneous taking in and distancing, Hal and Falstaff are seemingly unified but also detached. They are more like lovers in some way.

I don’t know what it exactly is. Their different birth, maybe.  I’m wondering whether King Henry V experience any degree of torture or emotional suffering before he makes his decision. I guess, man can never get past their inability to make moral choices in an immoral world. He is very much a chip off his cold-blooded father.