What’s it about? Noted womanizer John Falstaff (one of Shakespeare’s most famous characters) attempts to seduce both Mistress Ford and Mistress Page, who then work together to get back at him. The husbands Ford and Page are unaware of this at first, but it culminates in a rather mean trick that they play on Falstaff at the end of the play. Secondary to the play is the story of Page’s daughter, Anne, and her choice of a suitor/husband.
What is it really about? The womanizing ways of beloved Shakespearean ruffian John Falstaff finally catch up with him and two women he attempts to seduce find ways of humiliating him.
No, really. What’s it ACTUALLY about? It is about the difficulty and sometimes the sheer ridiculousness of relationships.
My thoughts:
The Merry Wives of Windsor is a play, like many of Shakespeare’s comedies in particular, that I think would really benefit from watching a good stage or film adaptation of it, rather than simply reading it. It can admittedly sometimes be hard to find the funny in some of these comedies when you’re only looking at the words on the page.
Perhaps this is in large part because of all the thinking I’ve been doing about this issue, but similar to Timon of Athens, this play felt at least in part that it was about trust and relationships. We see all different kinds of relationships with varying levels of trickery, etc., and that was very much at the forefront of my mind as I read it.
Aside from that, one thing that particularly struck me while reading this play was the women. There seem to be a lot more female characters in this play than in any other of Shakepeare’s work (at least that I have read or seen so far). I don’t know the exact numbers, but I really enjoyed seeing how proactive and central they were to the plot. So often, women in media are one-dimensional, flat, and there almost more as objects or devices than as fleshed-out characters. It’s remarkable to me that a piece written more than 400 years ago has better female characters than most movies that I see now.
I am not saying that Mistress Ford and Page represent feminist ideals or that they should be role models. But they are at least proactive in their own stories and they drive the momentum of the play more than any other character. And, as silly as it sounds, it is quite rare that women play that kind of role in literature or theatre. (Even strong characters like Maria in Sound of Music, Marguerite in Scarlet Pimpernel, and Bathsheba Everdeen in Far From the Madding Crowd – as three random examples – mostly react to events rather than drive the plot forward.) In this way, Merry Wives of Windsor (which is often presented with kind of a 50s, retro, women-should-stay-in-the-house kind of vibe) seems to me at this point to be a possible candidate as possibly Shakespeare’s most gender progressive play. Something that would be much more at home in a 60s or 70s, women’s movement setting.
Of course, that is only one way to look at it. At its heart, the story is still about a guy trying to get a girl into bed, essentially. But then, that’s the wonderful thing about Shakespeare. There are an infinite number of fair interpretations and just because it’s about one man’s womanizing, that doesn’t mean it can’t also be a good example of an early feminist text.
Highlights:
What to watch for – This play has enormous potential for physical comedy. If you have the opportunity to watch it on stage or you find a film adaptation, that is something to watch for!
Favorite character – I mean, I should say Falstaff, right? I mean, there’s a reason he’s so famous. And he is great. But actually there’s this adorable little French doctor (Caius) that is absolutely hilarious. I loved him. And also Mistress Ford and Mistress Page are about the best duo I’ve read in a long, long time. They are amazing.
