Understanding Shakespeare: The Merry Wives of Windsor by Robert A. Albano - HTML preview

There is much to enjoy in Shakespeare’s complex buffoon, and perhaps critics should not be so annoyed or outraged at Shakespeare’s changes in the character. Rather than see it as a fault, one should recognize it as part of Shakespeare’s art.

Shakespeare does not present Falstaff with any severe or lasting punishment; and, indeed, at the end of the play, Falstaff is welcomed into the town and invited to the marriage feast that Master Page will provide for his daughter. Falstaff is not as detestable as Overreach, and despite his presumption and other moral failings, the elements of the Jester (the sympathetic figure) that still appears on occasion in the Falstaff of Merry Wives bids the town – and perhaps the audience – to forgive his buffoonish antics and allow him another chance to mend his incorrigible ways. Of course, that will never happen.