Henry VI Part 3 Themes

Henry VI Part 3 Themes

Family

You can pick your friends, but you can't pick your family. Too bad no one in Henry VI, Part 3 ever heard that: they're turning on their family left and right in this play. The Brady Bunch it ain'tâ...

Duty

So many characters hear the call of duty in Henry VI, Part 3, and just like in the video game, they kill a bunch of people in war as a result. The play wants to get us thinking about what each pers...

Warfare

Since Henry VI, Part 3 opens during the Wars of the Roses, we're not surprised when there's a bunch of talk of warfare. The entire play focuses on a series of nasty civil wars that had the Lancaste...

Language and Communication

For Shakespeare, the mastery of language, speech, and rhetoric is closely aligned with authority and control. Language is powerful in Henry VI, Part 3. Sometimes, it's linked with rebellion and res...

Weakness

Let's face it: there wouldn't be much to Henry VI, Part 3 if Henry were a strong king like his father or grandfather. What do we get here? Well, we get a dude who is ready to give away the crown an...

Women and Femininity

Where would the characters in Henry VI, Part 3 be without gender stereotypes to make their insults really sting? For example, people are always ragging on Margaret becauseshe's a woman: she's calle...

Fate and Free Will

When Edward and Henry fight over the crown, are they acting of their own free will? Or are they merely agents of Divine Providence, or fate? Literary scholars and historians are divided on this iss...

Revenge

They say revenge is a dish best served cold, but the characters in Henry VI, Part 3 serve it all kinds of ways. Everyone seems to be in on the game of vowing to get revenge or actually getting it f...