Mojo, The Bard, & Me

 

Now, good Sir John, how do you like Windsor wives?—

-Mistress Page

The Merry Wives of Windsor         Act V Scene v, Line 109

 

And there you have it. Falstaff has spent a good portion of this play working on having his way with the wives, and in this final scene the wives, their husbands, and just about everyone else in the play turn the tables on him and make an ass of Falstaff. In fact, Sir John's reply to Mistress Page is I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass.

N’uff said about that. I suppose we could go on and talk about the character of Falstaff, but rather then go into a bunch of analysis I’ll simply leave you with a little fun fact. Falstaff has more lines than any other of Shakespeare’s characters. How is that possible, you ask. It’s possible because Falstaff is in three different plays; Henry IV Parts I and II, and The Merry Wives of Windsor. Hamlet has more lines in one play than any other character in one play. But overall, Falstaff has more. There you go, that’s your Shakespeare trivia for the day. As usual, no need to thank me.

This character reminds me a little of Sir John Falstaff. They both have a lot to say, and they both do their best to get others to do all the work. In this picture our modern day Falstaff is sitting in a chair with  his daughter on his lap and he's got his wife holding the bottle. 

Yup, very Falstaffian.