The Merry Wives of Windsor Literary Elements

drama; comedy

English

Sixteenth-century England, Windsor Castle (a royal residence)

There is no singular narrator throughout the play, and indeed the play follows a number of intersecting plots without distinguishing a central character.

merry, irreverent, ironic, absurd

There are no clear protagonists or antagonists present in the play. One could consider Falstaff both a protagonist (based on audiences' love for his character) and an antagonist (based on his intrusion upon the lives of those at Windsor). Other characters are similarly complex.

The central conflict of the play is between Falstaff and the wives, and then between Falstaff and the people of Windsor more generally: Falstaff decides to seduce two married women for fun (and for financial gain), but the women catch on quickly to his plan and seek revenge through public humiliation.

The climax of the play occurs after the second humiliation of Falstaff, when Mistress Page and Mistress Ford tell their husbands the truth. The husbands then join their wives (along with other characters) in the final humiliation of Falstaff in the woods.

Slender's comparison of Anne to a woman who speaks like a woman foreshadows his clumsy marriage at the end of the play to a boy who he mistook for Anne.

When Mistress Page declares that wives can be both "merry" and honest, she uses understatement to suggest that wives can have their own fun without compromising their reputations.

Because of its status as a domestic comedy, there are fewer allusions in the play than is typical in Shakespeare's work. The play mostly alludes to the burgeoning English middle class of early modern England, and the tensions that exist between the middle class and the aristocracy.

Important imagery in the play includes that of social class, Falstaff's physique, and food and indulgence.

The central paradox of the play is that Falstaff continues to pursue Mistress Ford and Mistress Page despite the wives not being interested in him at all. This pursuit is a testament to both Falstaff's obliviousness and his arrogance.

Mistress Ford and Mistress Page represent parallel characters, as one woman (Mistress Ford) approaches her marriage with her husband's jealousy in mind, while the other (Mistress Page) acknowledges that she and her husband trust each other completely. By the end of the play, Ford has apologized for his jealousy and balanced his own marriage to look more like that between Page and his wife.

The play features a number of instances of zoomorphism, an inverse personification in which people are endowed with animal traits. Often, characters use zoomorphism to insult other characters by comparing them to dogs, rodents, and pests.

Despite the comedic nature of the play, Falstaff enjoys a number of lengthy monologues that are both humorously exaggerative and shockingly eloquent. These speeches run counter to many other aspects of Falstaff's character – his dishonesty, his drunkenness, and his general boisterous behavior – creating more humor out of paradox. However, these lengthy speeches also emphasize how Falstaff is not of the same class as the other characters. A knight and a companion of Prince Hal, Falstaff is a member of the English aristocracy even if his behavior challenges that reputation.