King John Theme of Weakness

In a play that's obsessed with the theme of power, it's only natural that a prominent place would be given to that theme's opposite: weakness.

Only by considering the horrible position that weak people find themselves in in King John can we start to understand why achieving power is necessary. Nobody wants to end up in the position of Arthur and Constance, forced to ally themselves with people who don't truly care about them. And you can bet your life that nobody wants to end up in the position Arthur's in when Hubert throws him in the clink and he has use his wits to prevent anyone from blinding and murdering him.

Both Arthur and Constance find themselves in positions of weakness due to circumstances: it isn't their fault that Geoffrey (Constance's husband and Arthur's father) is dead, or that John has seized the throne of England. It isn't Arthur's fault that he is a kid, nor is it Constance's that she is a woman in a male-dominated society.

But the play shows us other forms of weakness as well, weakness that comes from a person's own character. King John is the prime example of this kind of weakness: in the second half of the play, for example, he pretty much becomes incapable of assuming any responsibility for his country and delegates all authority to the Bastard.

As a result of John's mental flightiness, England only escapes being conquered by a few strokes of luck. But you can't count on luck all the time, right? It comes as no surprise that the Bastard ends the play by telling the English to stick together: he doesn't want England to find itself in such a position of weakness ever again.

1. Who is the weakest character in the play?
2. Which does the play portray as the more dangerous form of weakness: weakness due to circumstances, or weakness due to a character flaw?
3. King John shows that power often has a corrupting effect on people. If weakness is the opposite of power, does it have the effect of making people better? Or does weakness corrupt, too?
4. Are there any characters in the play who can turn weakness into a strength?

King John shows people in positions of weakness making alliances with people we might expect them to hate (like when Arthur makes an alliance with Austria, the person who killed his uncle, Richard the Lionheart). Based on this, you could argue that weakness has a corrupting influence, just as power does.

Some characters in the play turn weakness into a strength, like when Pandolf uses the fact that the Church doesn't have military power of its own to inspire others to fight on its behalf, or when Arthur calls attention to his own weakness to make Hubert feel too guilty to harm him.