ABSTRACT
While psychoanalytic writing has turned its attention many times to Shakespeare's plays, the history plays do not feature very obviously in the bibliographies of books, articles, and papers on characters and themes in the plays. The relationship of Prince Hal to Falstaff, from the close companionship referred to off-stage and which vexes his father in Richard II, and which is seen on stage early on in Henry IV Part 1. Falstaff leads a band of men, many of whom are killed in the battle. Falstaff and Prince Hal meet a number of times on the battlefield, the first before the main action starts. Falstaff is the personification of what early psychoanalysis called the pleasure principle. Hal's struggle with his father is emphasized. Aarons observes how Henry IV appears to see his son's behaviour as a type of revenge for his own seizing of the crown.
