Character Clues
Character Analysis
Actions
Too bad Henry didn't get the memo: you have to do, do, do in this play. One of the reasons Henry seems so weak is that he never really seems to do anything—he just wants to sit around, chill out, and listen to some Christian rock on his iPhone… or whatever.
In contrast to the other characters, Henry doesn't fit in. Everyone else figures that you have to act (usually badly) to stay alive in this play. Cardinal Beaufort and Suffolk pay Hume to take down Eleanor (1.2); then they pay murderers to finish off Gloucester (3.2); York goes to Ireland to form an army (3.2); Eleanor hires witches to help her discover if she'll ever become queen (1.2); and even Gloucester knows how to act when he cleverly whips the truth out of Simpcox (2.1).
Actions speak louder than words, and the characters in this play sure know how to act.
Names
You probably noticed that a lot of characters in this play have multiple names, or even the same name, which can make things pretty confusing. Here's the deal: members of the English nobility were named after the land their families controlled. For example, Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York is often called "York," even though that's not technically his name.
Think of it this way. Let's say your name's "Sam" and you were born in Oakland but you own all the land in San Francisco because you inherited it from your dad. Your official name is "Sam of Oakland, Duke of San Francisco," and your friends call you either "Oakland" or "San Francisco" for short. Get it?
In Henry VI, Part 2, names mean a lot: they tell all about your heritage and family line. And let's face it—they also make the characters sound official and proper. That's because these kinds of names have high social status built right into them. "York" doesn't just mean the place where this guy is from. It also tells everybody that this guy is a duke, and that he's high class.
If you're having trouble keeping up with who's who, check out this character circle. It'll tell you who hangs out with whom, and who just defriended someone on Facebook.
Speech and Dialogue
This is a play, so... we learn a lot about the characters through dialogue. We know: you are totally surprised by this insight.
So let's take it further. There are different layers of dialogue in Henry VI, Part 2. The first, most obvious type of dialogue is the kind we see when the king and his supporters are talking to each other. Everyone praises Henry and tries to please him, regardless of what they actually think of him. Margaret tells him she worries that people will think she—gasp—had something to do with Gloucester's murder (3.2), and York tells Henry's errand boy Buckingham that he's just prepared an army to take care of Somerset, all the while pretending to know nothing about the rumor about his bid for the crown (5.1).
Basically, if the king is involved, you can bet that characters are going to lie, bend the truth, or fail to mention important (incriminating) information.
That brings us to the second kind of speech and dialogue we get: the kind when the characters are telling us the truth. (It does actually happen sometimes.) How do we know that all the stuff listed above is a pack of lies? Well, we just saw Margaret and her posse plan Gloucester's death (3.1), for one thing. And York tells us directly that he thinks he deserves the crown (1.1 and 3.1).
What does this tell us? Well, we learn pretty quickly that these characters lie and manipulate each other to get what they want. It turns out you can only trust a liar when he's alone. Or with other liars.