SOURCE: “The Henry IV Plays,” in Henry the Fourth Parts I and II: Critical Essays, edited by David Bevington, Garland Publishing, 1986, 387-422.

In the following essay, originally published in 1984, Watson proposes that the Henry IV plays, in addition to being morality plays, also allow Shakespeare to present an analysis of ambition in the private and public arenas.

At the end of Richard II, Shakespeare's ambitious figures become versions of primal criminals such as Oedipus and Cronus, whose myths associate father/son rivalry with political rebellion. The Henry IV plays use this association to study the evolution of filial identity, the individual's imperative and dangerous growth toward sovereignty. Here, even more elaborately than in The Tempest, Shakespeare offers a sort of morality play about an individual's moral and psychological development; but while it may be helpful to make that allegory explicit in a systematic, Freudian way, it is crucial...