Star rating: ⭐⭐

Summary

The play starts with Shallow and Slender complaining about Falstaff. Hugh Evans tries to pacify him to no avail. He tells Slender to pursue Anne Page. Shallow gets Falstaff to confess his sins. Falstaff decides to pursue the wives of two rich men, Page and Ford. His companions, Pistol and Nim, tell Ford and Page of the plot. The wives realize that Falstaff sent the same letter to each of them. Angered, they conspire to get revenge.

Nim and Pistol inform Ford of Falstaff's plot, causing Ford to suspect his wife of infidelity. He pretends to be Master Brook and claims to love Mistress Ford to Falstaff, bribing him to court her. Falstaff tells Brook that they already planned to meet. Parson Evans meets Slender who attempts to acquire Anne Page's love. However, Anne is already in love with Fenton in secret. Mistress Page wants Caius, a doctor, to marry Anne. Caius challenges Parson Evans to a duel after finding out about Slender. They make up. Falstaff courts Mistress Ford until the men return to Ford's house when he hides in a laundry basket and taken to the river as a trick. They repeat this again.

They reveal their trick to their husbands. Page suggests humiliating Falstaff to stop his flirtations. They prank him one last time.

Mistress Ford tricks Falstaff into meeting her at night in a disguise. Children dressed up as fairies scare Falstaff. He makes up with the husbands and their wives. Anne elopes with Fenton. The Pages accept Fenton, and everyone is joyful after the night's adventure.

Reading Difficulty

Throughout the whole play, Shakespeare deliberately and consistently alters the spellings of words in order to show various accents and dialects, which is a constant irritation and significant barrier to understanding the play. This provides another example of the natural disadvantages that come with reading a play, which is meant to be watched. The play’s humor also heavily relies on manipulation of homophones and near-homophones, which also becomes an obstacle to immersion, often demanding a mental pause, since the humor is often clunky and awkward. Once or twice might have been fine, but it is clearly overused.

Characters

The trio of Shallow, Slender, and Evans stands out as three nearly-identical characters, much the same in speaking style and demeanor. They are almost interchangeable in the grand scheme of the narrative. Though potentially intended to inject diversity and depth into the story, they paradoxically create a simultaneously monotonous and excessive effect. The same is definitely true for Anne Page, Mistress Page, and Mistress Ford. Anne Page particularly is meant to be an object of affection but is rendered less impactful due to the overshadowing effect of the two Mistresses, whose interactions with Falstaff are the backbone of the humor. Their similarities ultimately detract from the nuances that could have elevated their individual stories, leaving them as mere variations on a theme.

Lightheartedness

Many elements of the play, such as the interchangeable characters and the ridiculous accents, give the play an overly silly tone, which is fine for a comedy, but at places Shakespeare goes too far. The completely overblown nature of the play ruins the stakes and therefore the emotional investment. In better plays such as “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” or “Much Ado About Nothing,” the tone remains light, pleasant, and cheery without crossing over into overly ridiculous territory by also putting in serious or toned-down scenes of emotional effect. In this there are hardly any, which diminishes its overall effect.