Falstaff Behind the Arras

The reason for the steady stream of analytic papers on Shakespeare's Histories can be stated quite simply: These plays are capable of affording us fresh, even ground-breaking insights into aspects of human behavior with which psychoanalysis is particularly concerned. One has only to think of Freud4 on Richard III, of Alexander,1 Kris,9 and Holland5 on Henry IV, and of Wangh15 on Richard II to appreciate why Shakespeare's Histories are gradually taking their place beside the Tragedies as a major source of analytic insight. While many Shakespearean critics, and their graduate students of literature, persist in regarding the Histories as mirrors of Elizabethan political thought, as 350 year-old relics whose mysteries can be solved only by individuals who have worn out their eyes perusing the products of the Tudor printing presses, the psychoanalytic critics, very much aware of the importance—the limited importance—of the relevant historical materials, persist in regarding Shakespeare's Histories as timeless and magnificently revealing depictions of the human condition.

This essay will endeavor to expand upon two pioneering contributions to the psychoanalytic study of the Henriad: Alexander's “A Note on Falstaff” and Kris' “Prince Hal's Conflict.” The end in view may be stated as follows: I want to shed light on the dynamics of the Oedipus complex by examining closely the manner in which the son's ambivalence toward the father results of necessity in ambivalence toward the father-substitute, an ambivalence which is apt to express itself in aggressive, even murderous urges toward the father-substitute at the unconscious level. To show this, I will need to regard the characters of both Falstaff and Prince Hal from a fresh perspective, a perspective which is perhaps adumbrated in earlier contributions but which has still to be set forth explicitly. We shall find that Falstaff is a far less “jolly,” a far less life-oriented figure, and that Prince Henry is driven by unconsci