Sly, himself, is an interesting character. We see little of him in the first scene of the Induction because he passes out by the fourteenth line and is not heard from until the Induction's second scene. However, the brief glimpse we get quickly establishes him as a drunken, belligerent sot unwilling to settle up with the Hostess. His initial lines show he is a comic, buffoon-like character (such as we would later see in Much Ado About Nothing's Constable Dogberry), unable to string an accurate sentence together and destined to become the butt of jokes. Sly tells the Hostess "The Slys are no rogues . . . we came in with Richard Conqueror" (3–4). Of course, Sly really means William the Conqueror. Next, he quibbles on the Hostess's declaration she will fetch the constable. Although his next action is to fall asleep, we can be sure Sly will provide great entertainment down the road.
The Lord's entrance sets the plan to dupe Sly into motion and introduces the notion of illusion to the story. The Lord, as if having nothing better to do, creates a comic inversion, enlisting the assistance of the entire household. His desire to take the drunken Sly and give him every luxury of a lord in an attempt to make "the beggar then forget himself" (40) goes far to address a very real concern for Elizabethan audiences. In Shakespeare's day, great discussion surrounded the idea of what we would now term "social mobility." In short, those in power wanted to keep the power and part of how they did that was by attempting to prevent others from dressing (and therefore acting) outside their birth. The underlying fear was that one born into a lower class could, by assuming proper clothes, pass oneself off as a social superior. Of course, as the Lord and Sly show us in Scene 2 of the Induction, the clothes alone do not make the man — at least not when an inferior attempts to take the place of a superior.
Of particular interest is the Lord's ordering his man Bartholomew to take on the role of Sly's wife, doting over him and even crying when appropriate (with help of an onion, if needed). Of course, the joke would have been entirely clear to Shakespeare's audience, who would have been all too aware that all women on the British public stage were played by boys and young men. In addition to calling direct attention to one of the most hotly debated aspects of the stage, Shakespeare also uses Bartholomew to introduce us to the idea of marital accord (or discord, as the case may be). The next scene of the Induction features Bartholomew and Sly interacting, giving us the first of what will eventually be many views on the subject of marriage. This time, however, we can't miss the comic effect. Shakespeare has made sure we are in on the joke.
