The Crown
Nothing says "I'm the man" like a shiny, blinged-out royal crown. As long as King John's got that thing on his head, there's no question that he's large and in charge, right? After all, a monarch's...
Rivers
Shakespeare is a HUGE fan of using swelling bodies of water (floods, tides, overflowing rivers) to talk about political turmoil. In King John, everyone is always talking about rivers, so let's disc...
Mommy Dearest
There sure are a lot of moms in this play, aren't there? You've got Eleanor, the mother of King John; you've got Lady Falconbridge, the mother of the Bastard; and you've got Constance, the mother o...
Phallic Symbolism
Speaking of patriarchal authority… it's a bit, um, hard to have patriarchal authority without phallic symbolism, isn't it? The character most obsessed with the male member is definitely the Basta...
Weather
Thunderstorms, flash floods, tempests at sea, you name it: there's a heck of a lot of bad weather going on here. What's more, bad weather seems to play a big role in how the plot unfolds. On two oc...