Summary
Justice Shallow and Master Slender discuss with Sir John Evans, a clergyman, how Shallow is angry at John Falstaff. Evans suggests attempting to secure a marriage between Slender and Anne Page, and they go to the Page residence. Falstaff is there, and admits to beating Shallow's men and killing his deer. Anne arrives, along with Mistress Page and Mistress Ford, and everyone dines together. Evans and Shallow convince Slender to pursue a marriage to Anne even if he does not feel affectionate toward her.
Slender attempts to make conversation with Anne but fails miserably. Evans sends Simple, a servant, to Doctor Caius's house, asking for his servant Mistress Quickly's help with convincing Anne to marry Slender. Meanwhile, at the Garter Inn, Falstaff informs his friends of his plan to seduce Mistress Ford and Mistress Page and to become rich from their husband's money. He shows them a letter he has written to each woman, but his friends Pistol and Nim refuse to deliver them.
When Simple arrives at Caius's house, Mistress Quickly agrees to convince Anne to marry Slender. Caius arrives, and after discovering Simple hiding in a closet, writes a note to Evans declaring that he wants to fight him (for he is also in love with Anne Page). Caius scolds Mistress Quickly for agreeing to help Evans and Slender, and Quickly assures him that she knows Anne actually loves him. But when Caius leaves, Quickly remarks to herself that Anne does not love either man. Fenton arrives to speak to Quickly about Anne and she assures him, too, that Anne loves him. When he departs, Quickly repeats that Anne does not love any of her potential suitors.
Analysis
The first act of the play introduces the audience to the major characters as well as the performance's two major plots. Like many of Shakespeare's comedies, The Merry Wives of Windsor features intersecting plots that involve some overlapping characters, but which are each with their own stakes and central themes. The first of these plots is the marriage plot regarding Anne Page: she is the only single woman of marriageable age in the entire play (and likely one of few in all of Windsor) and is therefore highly desired by all the single men in the play. It is within this plot that Shakespeare first introduces the theme of gender to the play, as the men who are vying for Anne's affections spend most of the first act making fools of themselves – notably Slender, who cannot carry a conversation with Anne, and Doctor Caius, whose jealousy and lack of awareness lead him to a fight with Evans rather than to his pursuit of Anne. Furthermore, Mistress Quickly's asides to herself in this first act are significant because they suggest, despite her crassness and lowborn status, that she as a woman has deeper insight into Anne's desires than any of these potential suitors. Indeed, she is correct in declaring that Anne is not interested in Slender or Caius, but she vows to help them win her hand anyway. Mistress Quickly's character therefore helps set up the play's role reversal, in which women become master manipulators of self-indulgent and ignorant men.
The second plot to develop in Act One is that regarding Falstaff, Mistress Page, and Mistress Ford. Audiences would have been delighted to see Falstaff appear on stage, as his role in the history plays Henry IV, Part One and Henry IV, Part Two made him a fan favorite among theater-goers at the time. Known for his boisterous nature, perpetual drunkenness, overconfidence, and general debauchery, Falstaff provided levity to what were otherwise serious history plays about the succession of English kings. It is therefore fitting that Falstaff's first appearance in The Merry Wives of Windsor is a confident confession to a crime against Shallow (which nobody else seems to care about), followed by a newfangled plot to seduce two married women. Falstaff's presence in the play also helps introduce the theme of class and status: Windsor was a royal residence, which explains why Falstaff (a knight, and companion to Prince Hal, later King Henry V) would be spending time there. However, Falstaff treats the people of Windsor – largely middle-class – as pawns for his own entertainment and financial gain. By establishing this comedic seduction plot at the beginning of the play, Shakespeare comments on England's social landscape and frames Falstaff and other higher-ranking characters as intrusions upon an otherwise tranquil middle-class world.
