In past posts, we have said that every story begins with a sacrifice. However, that is only the half of the equation. Let’s use a more neutral way to describe it and say that every story begins with an “identity crisis”, where “crisis” simply means “time for a decision”. The hero must decide to take the journey. That is true even if the situation was entirely generated by external forces. The hero must still choose to face reality. The only other option is dissociation, which amounts to a renunciation of agency, will, and consciousness. We can turn that around and say that the hero who faces the journey in the fullest terms displays the greatest agency, will, consciousness, and all other aspects of their being. All of Shakespeare’s heroes fit into this category.
The reason why dissociation is a tempting option is because the identity crisis that begins every transformation requires us to leave behind an identity that we are attached to. That entails grief. But Joseph Campbell was also correct to say that the identity crisis is a “call to adventure”, since it holds the promise of something new with all the excitement, novelty, and surprise that comes with that. Therefore, every transformation is simultaneously a death and a birth. Every identity crisis is a double-edge sword that implies sacrifice and novelty, grief and adventure.
We can think about this another way using the ancient Greek concepts of Eros and Thanatos. Eros is usually translated as “love”, but it can also be thought of more neutrally as “attraction”. Something is drawing the hero forward towards a new identity. That “something” is a collection of external and internal drives, forces, motivations, and occurrences. It encompasses both the esoteric elements of the hero’s identity and the world which they inhabit. We may draw boundaries around these and give them names, but it is the interactions between them all where the magic lies. Because the number combinations quickly exceeds rational understanding, cause and effect seems to disappear. Transformations are acausal and non-deterministic, which is why modern science wants to have nothing to do with them and why the concept has been safely tucked away in a neat little box called “fiction”.
The upshot of all this is that our first step in interpreting any story-as-transformation is to recognise the dual action of Eros and Thanatos. Under Eros we think of all the elements, both esoteric and exoteric, which are driving the hero towards the new. Under Thanatos, we think of all the elements that are holding the hero back, tying them to their old identity. Eros includes the hero’s desire for a new identity. Thanatos includes their attachment to the old and the grief that comes from letting it go. Thus, our first questions when interpreting any story are:
· What is the starting holy state of the hero, i.e. the stable identity they begin with?
· What is Thanatos? What part of their old identity must the hero sacrifice?
· What is Eros? What is drawing the hero towards some new identity?
Before we apply these questions to Shakespeare’s Henry IV, there is one more technical point we need to cover, which is that it is common for storytellers not to show us the starting holy state of the hero directly. In such cases, the story begins with the hero already in sacred state, i.e., already having made some kind of sacrifice that moves them towards a new identity. We can demonstrate the difference using two famous science fiction movies from recent decades.
Most people would know the movie The Matrix. When we meet Neo for the first time, he is already searching for the matrix and has already created the parallel identity that allows him to do so. This identity as a computer hacker and digital drug dealer (called Neo) exists in conflict with his official exoteric identity as a professional computer programmer (Mr Anderson). Mr Anderson is a law-abiding, tax-paying citizen. Neo is a criminal. In short, Neo is already in sacred state when the movie begins. His identity is split between the old and the new, and he has not yet made the decision to fully relinquish the old.
Compare that to another famous science fiction hero: Luke Skywalker. In the first Star Wars movie, Luke is in holy state when we first meet him. He has a stable, secure identity as a farm boy on Tatooine. That identity gets destroyed by the arrival of the droids with the message from Princess Leia and then the killing of his aunt and uncle by stormtroopers. Thus, the movie directly portrays Luke’s transition from holy state to sacred state.
Now, the trouble with both of these stories, and the reason why neither of them is on a par with anything in Shakespeare, is that they pay no attention whatsoever to the sacrifice that the hero makes in agreeing to the transformation. In the case of Luke Skywalker, this is particularly egregious since his aunt and uncle have just been murdered and he shows not the slightest sign of remorse or grief. Meanwhile, The Matrix completely avoids any of the issues raised by the fact that the people Neo thought were his parents, family, and friends were not real or that all his childhood memories were fake. Both movies are too eager to get to the fun parts of the story to worry about dealing with these pesky issues that would actually arise in real life. As a result, they entirely avoid the notion that Luke or Neo has to sacrifice anything in order to make their transformations.
Almost all of Shakespeare’s works follow The Matrix by presenting us with a hero who is already in sacred state when the action begins. But the Bard always provides us with the clues we need to understand the starting holy state, the sacrifice, and the desire that drives the hero forward. Learning to unpack this is the key to understanding Shakespeare’s greatest works, as I detailed in my recent book on the subject.
It shouldn’t surprise us, then, to find that Henry IV features a hero who is already in sacred state when the story begins. We learn in the opening scene of the play that Prince Hal is estranged from his father. The king receives news of growing internal problems caused by an ambitious young man called Harry Hotspur. The exploits of Hotspur on the battlefield earn the respect of the sovereign but also cause him to reflect negatively on his own son, who shares the name of Harry. Instead of proving himself in battle like the gallant Hotspur, Prince Hal has been frequenting taverns and brothels, indulging in shameful behaviour not befitting his position in society. The very next scene reinforces this message as we meet Hal and Falstaff, who are recovering from a night of debauchery.
From our vantage point in the modern world, the idea of a young man partying and enjoying himself is not behaviour that we would consider inappropriate (within certain bounds). But we must remember that this story is set at a time when leaders were expected to show courage on the battlefield and Christian piety off it. Indeed, Henry IV was a devout Christian in real life who took a spiritual quest to the Holy Land.
Thus, the implied holy state for Hal is to follow in his father’s footsteps by receiving an education befitting a nobleman, including military and religious training, and learning the ins and outs of the royal court, which he would one day lead. The story implies that Hal had applied himself to this education in the past because, when the time comes to fight later on, he proves himself a skilled warrior. In fact, Hal effortlessly transitions back into his royal role in the second half of the story. Therefore, we can surmise that he was once a normal prince doing normal prince things. That is his starting holy state and that gives us the answer to our first question.
This brings us to the next question: what is Eros? What desires, drives, and opportunities are pushing the hero forward into a new identity. In relation to Hal, we might think it is Eros itself that is driving him, since what we have is a young man indulging in wine, women, and song, and that is something “natural” that requires almost no explanation. If that were true, then it wouldn’t be much of a story. But Shakespeare is doing something much more interesting than that.
Remember, what we are looking for in the identity crisis that begins a transformation is Eros and Thanatos, all the things that are driving the hero towards a new identity and all those that are holding them to the old one. The attachment to the old identity comes at least partly from the fear of stepping into the sacred state where the new identity is not yet established. The hero must effectively put themselves into limbo, a state between identities. A common metaphor for this is the rickety old bridge over a gaping chasm. You can’t be sure that the bridge won’t collapse and plunge you into the abyss. That is what it means to be in sacred state, and that is why the temptation always exists to back away from the bridge and stay in the safety of the known world.
Even in Shakespeare’s comedies, this dynamic holds. The hero must lay something on the line if they want to get what they desire on the other side of the transformation. If Hal wants to enjoy wine, women, and song, he should have to pay a price for it. But this is where Henry IV is unique. Prince Hal is not laying anything of real importance on the line. Despite his behaviour, he is still a prince, and there is no question that he won’t be king one day. In fact, Falstaff and the other characters make constant jokes about “when you’re king, you should do such and such”. But if that’s true, then doesn’t it follow that Hal is not making any real sacrifice and therefore that he is not going through any real transformation?
As a first approximation, we can say that the answer is yes. Those who have seen the play would know that Hal spends the first two acts mucking around with Falstaff and his friends until he gets a call from his father that a civil war is breaking out and he is expected to do his duty as prince and lead forces into battle. That is exactly what Hal does. His transition from bad boy back to prince happens effortlessly and with no real drama at all. A big part of the reason why that is true is because Hal’s bad behaviour was entirely intentional.
We don’t need to speculate on this point; Shakespeare has Hal tell us himself in a soliloquy at the end of Act 1. The prince says that he is deliberately engaging in vice, not for the enjoyment of it alone, but as a way to improve his reputation later. He reasons that any quality is more fully appreciated only by contrast with its opposite. Even leisure would become tedious if it were not interspersed with work. Therefore, he is engaging in vice now because he believes this will make the virtue he wins later shine more brightly than it would if he had always been a faithful and obedient son and heir.
It follows from this that Hal’s excursion into debauchery is entirely deliberate, and he has every intention of returning to virtue when the time comes. This means that Hal is entirely in control of the situation and, because of that, he cannot be in sacred state. The whole point of sacred state is that you are on a rickety bridge crossing a chasm, and you might fall in. That is not the case for Hal. Everything proceeds according to his plan.
All of this seems to contradict our model of transformation and we must either say that it is a failure on Shakespeare’s part or a failure in our model. In Henry IV, the hero of the story doesn’t really go through a proper transformation in the sense that they sacrifice something and get something in return. What we have is a hero who effortlessly manipulates things to his advantage and does so in full consciousness of what he is doing. That is not what happens in practically every other Shakespearean story. On the contrary, Shakespeare makes his heroes lay everything on the line in order to transform themselves. How, then, are we to interpret what is going on in Henry IV?
The answer lies in the themes we discussed in last week’s post. Remember, the story of the playboy prince who has an epiphany that leads him to renounce his wicked ways and become a faithful servant to god, king, and country was a fictional one. It had been created by Henry V and then propagated by Henry VIII for propaganda purposes. Shakespeare was not at liberty to change that story, but he could satirise it.
What does Hal tell us in his soliloquy? He tells us that it is possible to manipulate one’s reputation and appear more virtuous than one is by engaging in vice in order to make one’s virtues seem greater than they are. What is it called when you deliberately manipulate people’s perceptions in this fashion? One word for it would be “deception”. Hal is telling us that he is trying to deceive others by altering his reputation in his favour.
And here is the beautiful thing: that is exactly what Henry V did in real life! The fictional story of Henry V’s epiphany was constructed in order to make him seem more virtuous than he was. Shakespeare is satirising the whole thing by making his Prince Hal tell us how propaganda works. Even more specific than that, he is telling us how the original propaganda created by Henry V works. You create a fictitious story of a wayward prince who miraculously reverts back to virtue. That is a far more interesting and memorable story than the truth, which is that Henry V was a faithful son and dutiful prince in his younger years.
Thus, the fact that Shakespeare makes his Prince Hal not go through any kind of meaningful transformation is a deliberate choice which further enhances the satire because the real Henry V also didn’t go through the transformation that he claimed. That’s the whole reason why the story was fake.
It follows from this that Shakespeare clearly knew that the original story of Henry V was bullshit, and he decided to poke fun at it. One of the ways he does this is by having his Prince Hal control his own transformation. He becomes a bad boy when he wants, and he reverts to a good boy when he wants too. That takes most of the drama and suspense out of the story because Hal doesn’t really have anything on the line. That would be completely unacceptable in a tragedy, but Henry IV is a comedy and so it is valid. Thus, Shakespeare is breaking “the rules” of storytelling for effect in order to create a satire.
All of this is true, and yet, there is much more to it. Transformation is always about identity, and identity has two aspects. There is the exoteric, outward-facing part and the esoteric, inward-facing part. Our exoteric identity is how other people perceive us. If those people know us and witness any transformation we happen to go through, their opinion is valid. But when they don’t know us personally, as was the case with the king of England in 1400, they can’t make any valid judgements. Nevertheless, historical stories always describe transformations. To the extent that those stories are believed, they become the accepted truth of a person’s exoteric identity. If you are a powerful person who can pay propagandists to invent a story about you, you can manipulate your own exoteric identity in your favour, just as Prince Hal tells us he is doing.
Shakespeare’s Prince Hal may be deliberately manipulating his own exoteric identity, but there is a crucial difference between him and the real-world Henry V: Hal is actually living it. He really is hanging around with petty criminals. Moreover, we can see that he is enjoying himself. The fun he is having is twofold. He gets to enjoy wine, women, and song, and he gets to manipulate events in his favour. Therefore, the exoteric transformation that Hal goes through is real. Unlike the real-life Henry V, Hal is hanging around with petty criminals at the start of the story. He then goes back to the royal court to do his duty. This is a transformation of his exoteric identity. But there is no transformation of his esoteric identity because he is doing it all on purpose.
The reason this is important is because the difference between exoteric and esoteric identity becomes one of the core themes of the story, as entailed by the difference between “honour” and “dishonour”. Prince Hal playfully manipulates his own exoteric identity, which shows that he treats honour as something not of great importance. However, his antagonist in the story, Harry Hotspur, is obsessed with honour. Indeed, it is Hotspur’s insatiable drive for honour that forces the civil war to occur. What Prince Hal learns from his petty-criminal mentor, Falstaff, is a much more relaxed attitude to honour, and to life itself. This ends up being the main theme of the story, and we will address it in next week’s post.