The Merry Wives of Windsor

The Merry Wives of Windsor is a comedy by William Shakespeare, first published in 1602, though
believed to have been written prior to 1597. It features the fat knight Sir John Falstaff, and is
Shakespeare's only play to deal exclusively with contemporary Elizabethan era English middle class
life. It has been adapted for the opera on occasions.
The play's date of composition is unknown; it was registered for publication in 1602, but was
probably several years old by that date. Textual allusions to the Order of the Garter suggest that the
play may have been intended for performance in April 1597, prior to the installation in May of the
Knights-Elect of that order at Windsor; if so, it was probably performed when Elizabeth I attended
Garter Feast on April 23. This was not necessarily the premiere; presumably, the play was also
staged at the public theatre.

Characters

• Sir John Falstaff

• Bardolph, Pistol, Nym, (Followers of Falstaff)
• Robin, page to Falstaff, possibly the son of Mr Page.
• Messrs. Ford & Page, two Gentlemen dwelling at Windsor.
• William Page, a Boy, Son to Page.
• Sir Hugh Evans, a Welsh Parson
• Doctor Caius, a French Physician.
• Rugby, a Servant to Doctor Caius.

• Mistress Quickly, Servant to Doctor Caius.

• Shallow, a Country Justice.

• Slender, Cousin to Shallow.
• Simple, Servant to Slender.
• Fenton, a young Gentleman.
• The Host of the Garter Inn.
• Mistress Ford
• Mistress Page
• Anne Page, her Daughter, in love with Fenton.

Synopsis

The play anachronistically places Sir John Falstaff, who had previously appeared in Shakespeare's
plays about the medieval King Henry IV and set circa 1400, in the contemporary setting of the
Elizabethan era, circa 1600.

Falstaff arrives in Windsor very short on money. He decides, to obtain financial advantage, that he
will court two wealthy married women, Mistress Ford and Mistress Page. Falstaff decides to send
the women identical love letters, and asks his servants – Pistol and Nym – to deliver them to the
wives. When they refuse Falstaff sacks them and in revenge the men tell Ford and Page (the
husbands) of Falstaff's intentions. Page is not concerned but the jealous Ford persuades the Host of
the Garter to introduce him to Falstaff as a 'Master Brook' so that he can find out Falstaff's plans.

Meanwhile, three different men are trying to win the hand of Page's daughter, Mistress Anne Page.
Mistress Page would like her daughter to marry Doctor Caius, a French physician, whereas the girl's
father would like her to marry Master Slender. Anne herself is in love with Master Fenton, but Page
had previously rejected Fenton as a suitor due to his having squandered his considerable fortune on
high-class living. Hugh Evans, a Welsh parson, tries to enlist the help of Mistress Quickly (servant
to Doctor Caius) in wooing Anne for Slender, but the doctor discovers this and challenges Evans to
a duel. The Host of the Garter prevents this duel by telling both men a different meeting place,
causing much amusement for himself, Justice Shallow, Page and others. Evans and Caius decide to
work together to be revenged on the Host.

When the women receive the letters, each goes to tell the other and they quickly find that the letters
are almost identical. The "merry wives" are not interested in the aging, overweight Falstaff as a
suitor; however, for the sake of their own amusement and to gain revenge for his indecent
assumptions towards them both, they pretend to respond to his advances.

This all results in great embarrassment for Falstaff. 'Brook' says he is in love with Mistress Ford but
cannot woo her as she is too virtuous. He offers to pay Falstaff to court her, saying that once she has
lost her honour he will be able to tempt her himself. Falstaff cannot believe his luck, and tells
'Brook' he has already arranged to meet Mistress Ford while her husband is out. Falstaff leaves to
keep his appointment and Ford soliloquises that he is right to suspect his wife and that the trusting
Page is a fool.

When Falstaff arrives to meet Mistress Ford, the merry wives trick him into hiding in a laundry
basket ("buck basket") full of filthy, smelly clothes awaiting laundering. When the jealous Ford
returns to try and catch his wife with the knight, the wives have the basket taken away and the
contents (including Falstaff) dumped into the river. Although this affects Falstaff's pride, his ego is
surprisingly resilient. He is convinced that the wives are just "playing hard to get" with him, so he
continues his pursuit of sexual advancement, with its attendant capital and opportunities for
blackmail.

Again Falstaff goes to meet the women but Mistress Page comes back and warns Mistress Ford of
her husband's approach again. They try to think of ways to hide him other than the laundry basket
which he refuses to get into again. They trick him again, this time into disguising himself as
Mistress Ford's maid's fat aunt, the fat woman of Brentford. Ford tries once again to catch his wife
with the knight but ends up beating the "old woman", whom he despises, and throwing her out of
his house. Black and blue, Falstaff laments his bad luck.

Eventually the wives tell their husbands about the series of jokes they have played on Falstaff, and
together they devise one last trick which ends up with the Knight being humiliated in front of the
whole town. They tell Falstaff to dress as "Herne, the Hunter" and meet them by an old oak tree in
Windsor Forest (now part of Windsor Great Park). They then dress several of the local children,
including Anne and William Page, as fairies and get them to pinch and burn Falstaff to punish him.
Page plots to dress Anne in white and tells Slender to steal her away and marry her during the
revels. Mistress Page and Doctor Caius arrange to do the same, but they arrange Anne shall be
dressed in green. Anne tells Fenton this, and he and the Host arrange for Anne and Fenton to be
married instead.
The wives meet Falstaff, and almost immediately the "fairies" attack. Slender, Caius, and Fenton
steal away their brides-to-be during the chaos, and the rest of the characters reveal their true
identities to Falstaff.

Although he is embarrassed, Falstaff takes the joke surprisingly well, as he sees it was what he
deserved. Ford says he must pay back the 20 pounds 'Brook' gave him and takes the Knight's horses
as recompense. Slender suddenly appears and says he has been deceived – the 'girl' he took away to
marry was not Anne but a young boy. Caius arrives with similar news – however, he has actually
married his boy! Fenton and Anne arrive and admit that they love each other and have been
married. Fenton chides the parents for trying to force Anne to marry men she did not love and the
parents accept the marriage and congratulate the young pair. Eventually they all leave together and
Mistress Page even invites Falstaff to come with them: "let us every one go home, and laugh at this
sport o'er by a country fire; Sir John and all".

Themes

Key themes of Merry Wives include love and marriage, jealousy and revenge, social class and
wealth. Explored with irony, sexual innuendo, sarcasm, and stereotypical views of classes and
nationalities, these themes help to give the play something closer to a modern-day view than is
often found in Shakespeare's plays.

The play is centered on the class prejudices of middle-class England. The lower class is represented
by characters such as Bardolph, Nym, and Pistol (Falstaff's followers), and the upper class is
represented by Sir John Falstaff and Master Fenton. Shakespeare uses both Latin and misused
English to represent the attitudes and differences of the people of this era. Much of the comedic
effect of the play is derived from misunderstandings between characters.

Another prominent Elizabethan theme that runs through the play is the idea of the cuckold.
Elizabethans found the idea of a woman cheating on her husband absolutely hilarious and seem to
have assumed that if a man was married then his wife was cheating on him. Because a cuckolded
husband was said to "wear horns", any reference, no matter how oblique, to horns or a horned
animal (for example, the "buck" basket where Falstaff finds himself) probably brought down the
house.