Wolsey's Use Of Figurative Language In Henry Viii

Accomplished authors are adept at using rhetorical devices to express the inner thoughts and complex emotions of their characters. Implemented successfully, these devices can serve as a remarkable conduit of the character’s tangibility, making them seem relatable and realistic as in William Shakespeare’s Henry VIII. In the selected passage, from the aforementioned play, the titular king has just discharged his advisor, Cardinal Wolsey. Wolsey’s subsequent soliloquy served to reveal his resentment and despair over his dismissal. Shakespeare’s skilled use of religious allusions, strong diction, and figurative language reveal the extent of Wolsey’s lamentation. Shocked at his misfortune, Wolsey initially bemoans his demoted status and bitterly mocks his downfall as “a long farewell to all my greatness!” In his anger Wolsey belittles the world as “vain” and “a killing frost”, eventually exclaiming “I hate ye!” His hostile eruptions are juxtaposed with the shifts to despair that Wolsey experiences through his speech. His self-characterization as a downtrodden “poor man” is a change from the ambitious “good easy man” he describes himself as at the beginning of
Wolsey states that he is “weary and old with service”, which can be seen as an admission to the extensive amount of personal resources he has poured into his work for the King. Wolsey also characterizes those who “hang on princes’ favours” as “wretched”, bemoaning his fate after a long allegiance with the King. As if these words, with their negative connotations, were not enough to display Wolsey’s despair, his last utterance in his speech does. After his contrast with Lucifer, Wolsey expressed one last vow that he is “never to hope again”. This powerful and negative diction strongly suggests that Wolsey has abandoned all hope: the best possible illumination of Wolsey’s emotional