The Merry Wives of Windsor

The play Merry Wives of Windsor is a comedy. It has a lot of characters. Right at the beginning John Falstaff, an impoverished knight is introduced as a villainous character. He

has killed the deer of Justice shallow, beaten his men or servants and broke open the lodge of Justice Shallow and when Justice Shallow complains of it he is completely unrepentant. Two families are introduced. One family consists of Ford, Mistress Ford and the other family consists of Page, Mistress Page and their two children Anne and William.

Sir Hugh Evans is the Welsh parson. There is an inn called the Garter inn, in this town and the host of that inn is the Host. There is Doctor Caius who is of French origin and his housekeeper Mistress. Quickly. Justice Shallow and his nephew Abraham slender. There are also a lot of servants who have a lot of dialogues to speak. In the very first scene the villainy of John Falstaff is established.

His attitude to Justice Shallow's complaint about his deer, his servants and other property is callous. Justice Shallow's nephew Slender also accuses John Falstaff's servants of stealing his possessions such as a book of hymns. Soon Anne Page is introduced and Abraham Slender is considered as a possible suitor for Anne Page. The parson Hugh Evans takes an interest in this match. So does Justice Shallow. There is a dinner at the Page residence and everyone is invited.

Everyone attends but Slender does not wish to eat this meal.

Anne page persuades him but he just sits with them. Soon Mistress Ford and Mistress page are introduced and they appear to be rich married if rather idle housewives. John Falstaff being impoverished and being unscrupulous wants to gain money through having an affair with these wives. He sends two letters to the two wives. Both wives being friends share the letter with each other. They are offended by John Falstaff's insincerity and duplicity and audacity and plot to revenge this. A series of meetings are contrived between Mistress Ford and John Falstaff. Meanwhile Falstaff's servants are disgusted by Falstaff's schemes and they tell Ford and Page about Falstaff's designs on their wives. Both take it in different ways. Ford is extremely incensed. Page is not worried and does not even believe the servants. Ford decides to solve this in his own way. Ford goes to Falstaff pretending to be someone called Brooke. He tells Falstaff that he has been wooing Mistress Ford for very many years to no avail. Brooke bribes Falstaff with money and alcohol. Falstaff says he will woo mistress Ford for Brooke. A line spoken by Brooke to Falstaff was very interesting to me. Like a fair house built on another man's ground, so that I have lost my edifice by mistaking the place where I erected it. These are the lines of Brooke to Falstaff about his wooing Mistress Ford. Think of the amount of deception going on here. Brooke is actually Ford and he is pretending to be Brooke in order to find out about Falstaff's affair with his own wife. Mistress Ford and Mistress page wish to trap and punish Falstaff for his treachery. But they do not tell anything to their husband's until after a series of incidents designed by them take place. When Falstaff goes to meet Mistress Ford, Mistress Page announces that Ford and a lot of his friends are coming to the Ford's home to find out if Falstaff is at the Ford home. Ford finds out about Falstaff going to meet Mistress Ford by pretending to be Brooke and having a conversation with Falstaff. Immediately Mistress Page and Mistress Ford place Falstaff in a laundry basket and tell the servants to take it to the river Thames to dump Falstaff in water along with the laundry. Ford comes along with his friends and search the house but do not find Falstaff there. Here it was not clear to me if mistress Ford invited Falstaff to the house knowing that Ford would come to search with his friends and had planned to put him in the laundry basket earlier itself. It is also not clear if Ford did not come with his friends to search what would she say to John Falstaff. All of Ford's friends chide him for his suspicion. Then Mistress Ford sends Mistress Quickly to Falstaff again for another meeting at the Ford residence. Although Falstaff is weary he is hopeful and he goes again to see Mistress Ford. Mistress Page is there when Falstaff arrives and hides. Soon after the meeting begins between Falstaff and Mistress Ford Mistress Page seemingly arriving from outside with a new message that Ford and his friends are coming again to the house to search for Falstaff. So Mistress Page and Mistress Ford dress Falstaff like a woman and he is now disguised as a woman. Ford and his friends arrive and search the laundry basket. At this point Mistress Ford could have told him about Falstaff being there earlier because Ford searching the laundry basket is not groundless though doing so a long with all his friends is bizarre. Earlier Falstaff had told Ford who came to him disguised as Brook that he was put in a laundry basket by Mistress Ford. So Ford insists on searching the laundry basket. John Falstaff disguised as a woman leaves the house but since the woman John Falstaff is pretending to be is not liked by Ford he beats her. Meanwhile Simple the servant of Slender goes to meet John Falstaff for help in seeing if his Master Slender could marry Anne page.

There is a scene of Justice Shallow and Slender with Anne Page and Justice Shallow tells Anne Page all that Slender will do for her and Anne Page says let Slender woo for himself. Meanwhile Doctor Caius wants to marry Anne page. One day Hugh Evans sends Simple, Slender' s servant to Mistress Quickly who is Doctor Caius housekeeper to tell her to speak to Anne Page on behalf of Slender. This causes Doctor Caius to be angry with Hugh Evans because by sending Simple with this errand he has become Doctor Caius' enemy. They decide to have a duel.

Ford, Page, Shallow, Slender, Host etc come to watch the duel but eventually the duel does not take place and both are disarmed and sent in different directions.

Meanwhile Anne Page's father Page is supportive of Slender as a spouse for Anne page and her mother Mistress page is supportive of Doctor Caius as the spouse of Anne page. There is a third man who is Fenton who is interested in Anne page but the father and mother of Anne page are against this match due to the fact that his interest first was due to her wealth and his own rather boisterous ways. Mistress Ford and Mistress Page meanwhile want to teach Falstaff a lesson a third time. This time the invitation is to this garden like place and all the children are supposed to come dressed as faeries. Falstaff arrives at the faery place and I think, tells Mistress Page and Ford to divide him amongst themselves. They run away and somehow in the next scene Falstaff's duplicity is exposed. Ford agrees to trust his wife. The wives of Windsor are proved to be merry but honest. Page believes that his daughter will go to Slender during this faery dance party and Mistress Page believes that Anne will go to Doctor Caius. Meanwhile Fenton asks the Welsh parson Hugh Evans to marry him to Anne. In the end Anne marries Fenton. Another line in this play that I like is spoken by Page: "if he would intend this voyage toward my wife, I would turn her loose to him." This shows Page's complete trust of his wife. I read this play several times to understand the intricacies of the plot.