Shakespeare’s Fat Rogue: Falstaff and Obesity
Faculty Mentor
One WU Mentor; Matthew Fike, Ph.D.; fikem@winthrop.edu
College
College of Arts and Sciences
Department
English
Faculty Mentor
Matthew Fike, Ph.D.
Abstract
The essay uses biological analysis to determine how John Falstaff’s obesity in William Shakespeare’s great tetralogy The Henriad illuminates his relationship with Prince Hal. Previous criticism from Joshua Fisher, Elena Levy-Navarro, Philip Williams, and others suggests that obesity signifies psychological imbalance within Falstaff and that it ominously prefigures one possible future for Prince Hal. The present study argues that the biological drivers of Falstaff’s obesity and resulting death shadow the apparently friendly and fatherly relationship he has with the prodigal prince. For example, obesity can have long-lasting effects on the psyche due to the strain it puts on the body. The infectious personality that Falstaff possesses, combined with obesity’s slow destruction of his body and brain, makes him a toxic character whom audiences first fall for, then grow to loathe, and finally pity. In Shakespeare’s re-visioning of Jesus’s parable, the father figure tempts the son figure onto the broad highway that leads to destruction. Falstaff’s obesity not only manifests a repugnant soul that revels in gluttony and other vices but also signifies the antithesis of the glory that awaits Hal as King Henry V.
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Course Assignment
ENGL 305 - Fike
Shakespeare’s Fat Rogue: Falstaff and Obesity
The essay uses biological analysis to determine how John Falstaff’s obesity in William Shakespeare’s great tetralogy The Henriad illuminates his relationship with Prince Hal. Previous criticism from Joshua Fisher, Elena Levy-Navarro, Philip Williams, and others suggests that obesity signifies psychological imbalance within Falstaff and that it ominously prefigures one possible future for Prince Hal. The present study argues that the biological drivers of Falstaff’s obesity and resulting death shadow the apparently friendly and fatherly relationship he has with the prodigal prince. For example, obesity can have long-lasting effects on the psyche due to the strain it puts on the body. The infectious personality that Falstaff possesses, combined with obesity’s slow destruction of his body and brain, makes him a toxic character whom audiences first fall for, then grow to loathe, and finally pity. In Shakespeare’s re-visioning of Jesus’s parable, the father figure tempts the son figure onto the broad highway that leads to destruction. Falstaff’s obesity not only manifests a repugnant soul that revels in gluttony and other vices but also signifies the antithesis of the glory that awaits Hal as King Henry V.
