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One of Shakespeare’s most beloved characters, Sir John Falstaff first appeared in the Henry IV plays, where he was a close friend to the young Prince Harry. Though overweight, self-aggrandizing, lazy, and lecherous, Falstaff also boasts a remarkably sharp comic wit that has endeared him to generations of audiences and readers. In fact, according to a legend first circulated in the eighteenth century, Queen Elizabeth herself had been so delighted with Falstaff that she urged the Bard to write another play for this character, this time featuring him in love. The result, allegedly, is The Merry Wives of Windsor. Though likely spurious, this story nonetheless demonstrates the charm of this lovable rogue. Falstaff retains all the major hallmarks of his character from the history plays. He outshines everyone in verbal wit, but he lacks the self-awareness to realize that others are constantly mocking him. His humiliations never crush him, but neither do they ever fully reform him. Thus, despite officially being a knight, his lifestyle clearly renders him incompatible with the ideals of courtly life that one typically associates with that title.
When Merry Wives opens, Falstaff has just arrived in Windsor with his entourage. Finding himself impoverished by thieving companions and his own capacious appetites, he sets out to seduce two local women with the intention of stealing their husbands’ money. The plot is comically doomed to fail, in part because of the shrewdness of his targets, Mistresses Ford and Page. However, it’s also doomed by his own incompetence. His laziness shows in the way he sends identical letters to the woman, which quickly sets them against him. He also clearly believes in his own irresistibility, which the women undermine in their constant jokes about his physical size. In the play’s main plot, these women commit themselves to humiliating and exposing Falstaff for his wrongdoings. This plot culminates in his shaming at the surprise fairy masque in act 5. He arrives dressed in the guise of “Herne the Hunter,” wearing the head of a buck and ready to cuckold the Mistresses’ husbands. But as the townsfolk encircle him, dressed as fairies and pinching him in retribution for his crimes, he turns out to be the hunted rather than the hunter.
