约翰--福斯塔夫爵士.doc

An analysis of the characters of Sir John FalstaffName: 何荣慧 Class: 2010级英语教育（6）班 No.: 20100120021017IntroductionSir John Falstaff is one of the famous figures in Shakespeares Henry . He is a very complicated character. He is the prince drinking buddy, both optimistic and humorous boaster and a liar, neither the concept of moral honor nor bad heart. Meanwhile, he lives in the people from feudal society to the modern period of social transition, he did not aggressive new public class, but infected with a happy optimism and their self-enjoyment, he used the kidding and laugh, fun to seek life. He represents a lot of feudal retainer who were thrown out of noble households in the period of the breaking up of old feudal relation and the forming of new bourgeois ones. In order to make people know Falstaff more clearly and objectively, this paper seeks to find out characters of Falstaff. The first part is to introduce the image of Falstaff. The second part is to find out the causes of shaping the character of Falstaff .The last part is comments on Sir John Falstaff.The image of Sir John Falstaff Sir John Falstaff is one of the most brilliant creations in Shakespeares plays. He was a courtly page and a solider when his young days. But after he has lost his estates and become an adventurer and parasite. Falstaff is fat , old, ugly, gross, and guilty of many sins. He is Prince Hals boon companion. There is much fun in his drunken revels with Henry in the Boars Head Tavern, in his torrents of lies and boasts. Lies sprout out of him like mushrooms on a rich and rotten bed of earth. He says he has fought alone against two man. The next moment it is four. Presently we have seven, the eleven, then fourteen. He is stopped in time, or he would soon be talking of a whole army. When unmasked, he does not lose his temper, and is the first to laugh at his own boasting. Falstaff is selfish, treacherous and cynical. He does not hesitate in the least to seek profit whenever there is a chance. When commissioned to recruit a company for the army, he pricks for service rich citizens, but allows them to buy out their services, so that his pockets might be filled with bribes. In the end he leads to the battlefield a pack of old soldiers, discarded servants, stablemen and paupers. He speaks of them heartlessly:Tut ,tut; good enough to toss; food for powder, food for powder; theyll fill a pit as well as better: tush, man, mortal men.(Henry ,part,.3.) Falstaff comes to the battlefield without illusions. In contrast with Hotspur, “the flower of the chivalry to England,” who is ready “ to pluck bright honor, i.e. the honor of the decaying aristocracy, “ from the pale-facd moon,” Falstaff, the poverty-stricken knight and adventurer, is altogether practical. He comes to the battlefield and, finding a nobleman lying dead on the ground ,say:I like not such gringo honor as Sir Walter hath ; give me life ; which if I can save ; if not ,honor comestible unlooked for, and theres an end. He philosophizes on honor in a well-known soliloquy:“Can honor set to a leg? no or an arm? No .or take away the grief of a wound? no. honor hath no skill in surgery, then? no. What is honor? A word. What is that word, honor? Air .A trim reckoning! Who hath it? he that died oWednesday. Doth he feel it? no. Doth he hear it? no. It is insensible, then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? no. Why? detraction will not suffer it. Therefore Ill have none of it; honor is a mere scutcheon; and so ends my catechism.”（Part.1.）This contempt for the honor of noble classes was a striking feature of the period of the decline of feudalism and the rise of the bourgeoisie. On the battlefield, when one of the rebels attacks him, he falls down to play dead. He lies beside the slain Hostpur. The Prince Hal returns and gives an epitaph on Falstaff.At the moment, Falstaff spring to life and pretends to have killed Hotspur himself. His motto is:“The better part of valour is discretion.” He is so carefree and witty in his rascality that he has a charm of his own. In fact, Falstaff is a very innocent man. After the battle he return to the Boars head again. As soon an he hears of the news that Prince Hal has ascended the throne, Falstaff goes to London, confident of his warm reception by the new King. But he is wrong. Henry , to be a successful king, must repudiate Falstaff. . Causes of shaping the character of FalstaffA. Social BackgroundThe history of knight must be traced back the A.D 800, the kingdom Charlemagne unifies Western Europe, and he is called “great Roman emperor”. From that time there appears a very special class-knight, they take the uniform for military obligation and serve as the condition to obtain kingdom or the big feudal lord. The knight is quite noble but the glory position, therefore the man wants to become the knight on condition that he comes from aristocratic family. At the same time, in order to study each kind of culture and the tactics, and to learn the decent manners all knights must accept all kinds of training when they are children. But the birth of Falstaff is not casual. For one thing, at his time the knight system has been decayed and the humanism is in the embryonic stage, Falstaff represents the special class that be deemed to die, because he does not want to do anything for themselves and idle about, although the ideas of feudal system still has been rooted in people mind. For another thing, the Renaissance has been emerged at that time. During the period of the Renaissance, in order to pursue the happiness and freedom the human beings has started to throw off their shackles which has fixed them one generation after one generation. Falstaff is a typical example. Though he is a knight, he does not care about social regulation, and does do what he wants, all this reflects the happy and lovable climate. So the complex and contradictory characters of Falstaff are formed by his class status and social condition.B. Psychological FactorMost people usually consider that individual characters have two aspects. The one is the actions in reality which often reflect the human beings practice, the another is motive of actions which represent the mental movement. the psychologists regard the characters of human beings as formed by two basic requirements, which are nature purpose and cultural purpose. Falstaff is a knight and has decent status, in order to live and get the love he has to talk big, tell lies and often be teased by others. Without those things, the characters of Falstaff cannot make a deep impression in peoples mind. Comments on Sir John FalstaffDifferent people hold different views on the character of Falstaff. Falstaff is the product of a transition period when feudal ties are being dissolved and the capitalist society is not yet in birth. He is no longer a feudal lord, yet he cannot become a capitalist. He is only a social parasite, moving about with a big belly, eating, drinking, and doing nothing. The character of Falstaff, in Shakespeares play Henry IV Part One, serves as an emblem of frivolity and carelessness within a world filled with social and political significance. Falstaff scorns the world of politics and moral decisions in favor of existing from moment to moment. Though he dislikes this other world, Falstaff realizes he must sometimes come in contact with it. Through this speech, Falstaff places himself firmly out of any moral world concerned with justice or honor, instead living for no other reason than life itself. For instance, Falstaffs speech comes after the King and Prince Hal decide to war against the army of Hotspur. Though they wait on word from Worcester, the probability of conflict seems high. Falstaff knows that when the battle comes, he is going to be in the middle of it. Shortly before his speech on the nature of honor, Falstaff shows fear that he might be hurt. The Princes rejection of the request shows his scorn for Falstaffs desire to passively preserve only his own life. Throughout the last half of the play, as the Prince drifts away from Falstaff, Falstaffs role in the action of the play as a whole diminishes. The importance placed upon the idea of honor allows Hal to assume his rightful position beside the King, while Falstaff dims into the background. Falstaffs idea of honor is directly linked to his sense of time itself. In the opening lines of his speech, Falstaff says, “Tis not due yet: I would be loath to pay him before his day.”We see Falstaff, on occasion of the robbery at Gads-Hill, in the very act of running away from the Prince and Poins, and we behold him, on another of more honorable obligation, in open day light, in battle, and acting in his profession as a Soldier, escaping from Douglas even out of the world as it were; pretending death, and deserting his very existence; and we find him on the former occasion, betrayed into those lies and boastful words, which are the usual concomitants of coward in military action, and pretenders to valor. At last but not least, Falstaff is an excellent talker and also well versed. He expresses his ideas through his words and action. Falstaff presents many harsh, realistic ideas in the play. These ideas are balanced with his good nature. Falstaff is a lovable character and invokes deep emotions in the reader. Since Falstaffs views invokes thought in the reader. Through their contrast to the other nobles views, and since pain is used to balance his views, Falstaff invoked thoughtful sadness in the reader. we have found that Falstaffs indulgences cause him to slowly lost his life and alienate people around him, but he brings happiness and delight to people no matter how hard his condition. We also have found that there are complication existed in his characters. Though he is knight and has decent status, he has to lose his face and do some ridiculous things; though he is very old and fat, his wit to please people is proper with them. The human being has started to pay attention to themself since the Renaissance has appeared. The Romanticism of Falstaff is