Anne Page Defies Women’s Roles

As the play approaches its climax as the Ford and Page families plan to publically humiliate Falstaff in Act Five, readers learn in Act Four Scene Six that Anne Page is devising her own scheme. In this scene Fenton reveals in his discussion with the Host that Anne Page, “mutually hath answered my affection” in a letter she sent to him. In addition to this confession, Anne Page explains to Fenton her parents plan to fool Falstaff at Herne’s Oak. While they devise a plan to embarrass Falstaff for his actions, Anne Page will perpetuate the themes of deception and love versus money using her own plot. Both Page and Mistress Page, although were not as directly affiliated with the plots surrounding Falstaff as Ford and Mistress Ford were, they devised intricate plans against each other in planning Anne Page’s future without her consent. Anne Page explained in the letter to Fenton that her father “hath commanded her” to slip away with Slender and elope while her mother has the exact same plan for her to slip away and elope with Doctor Caius. Anne Page then decides to take this situation into her own hands, reflecting much of the actions of other characters in the play but uses deception for her own benefit instead of revenging someone. Anne Page’s plot breaks the cultural image of women as tokens for marriage and not money. In Falstaff’s plot to have an affair with both women, ‘Brooke’’s deception of Falstaff, and Mistress Ford and Page’s scheme that went behind their husband’s back and humiliation of Falstaff money and status became more important than the theme of love. Anne Page’s decision to go against her parents and the over arching themes of this play introduce the new role of women in making their own lives instead of having their lives planned for them like many of the other women who lack control in this play. Does Anne Page’s role in the play contribute to it’s title as much as the roles of the other women in the play? Will she become a ‘merry’ wife like Mistress Ford and Page or does this end and over come that label? Was this intentional or just for comical purposes?