All’s Well That Ends Well by Shakespeare

All’s Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare is a comedy as in it has a happy ending but it’s mostly not funny. The main characters do not make you laugh and the story is quite heavy. In the first paragraph of the Introduction in the RSC edition, Jonathan Bate writes, “All’s Well That Ends Well is one of Shakespeare’s least performed and least loved comedies.” I agree. Overall this is not my favourite and my reason is that the characters are not particularly likable people. But “It is also one of his most fascinating and intriguingly modern works.” I certainly agree with that too.

A physician’s daughter Helen falls in love with her master, Bertram. She manages to marry him by a bargain with the king. Bertram can’t refuse the marriage but he refuses to sleep with her, saying “When thou canst get the ring upon my finger, which never shall come off, and show me a child begotten of thy body that I am father to, then call me husband,” and runs off to a war zone. Helen goes after him and completes the challenges and wins his love in the end.

Immediately you might be thinking, that’s not very nice! It’s not very nice of Helen to force Bertram to marry her. It’s not very nice of Bertram to just run away. It’s also not very becoming or dignified that a woman runs after a man like that. I know! It hurts my brain to figure out who’s to blame for what, and who I feel sorry for. We’ll tease it out a bit in the video.

Helen is THE key character of the show. She speaks 16% of the lines and Bertram only 9%, less than Parolles, the King, and the Countess.

The story is set in motion by Helen’s desire for Bertram and her request to the king; it’s driven by her solo travel and her mission to complete the challenges; it ends with her success in the mission and her conquest of Bertram.

She sounds wonderful if you listen to people’s opinions of her, especially the older generation. The King thinks her “young, wise, fair” and virtuous and is willing to bestow her honour and wealth to match Bertram. When the Countess, Bertram’s mother, hears that Bertram has run away, says “I do wash his name out of my blood. And thou art all my child.” – I disown Bertram you’re my only child. “She deserves a lord that twenty such rude boys might tend upon” – she deserves someone better than my son. When Helen runs away too, the Countess worries about her safety and says, “Which of them both is dearest to me, I have no skill in sense to make distinction”. I don’t remember a fictional mother-in-law ever loves her daughter-in-law so much! Both the Countess and the King value Helen extremely highly.

So we’ve seen that Helen has the old King and the old Countess to vouch for her good character. Next, she’s a very capable, decisive and independent woman.

She manages to be presented to the King, makes the bargain that if she doesn’t heal him, she will lose her life, but if she heals him, the king will grant her a husband of her choice. And obviously she heals the King and chooses Bertram.

When Bertram runs away, she goes after him, alone, to a war zone. It’s incredible if a woman does that now with the help of airplanes and mobile phones but it must sound unbelievable to an Elizabethan audience. But she gets there, befriends a mother and a daughter, convinces them that she’s the wife of Bertram, enlists their help with friendship and money, tricks Bertram off his ring and manages to have sex with him while fooling him into thinking that he is having sex with another woman.

You have to own that she’s extremely capable, intelligent and independent. She hatches a plan, she executes it, all in her control.

Do you like her so far? I find an inconsistency in her that’s unsettling.

Looking at her from one angle, she’s a vulnerable young woman who has no protection in the world. She’s good and obedient in her mother-in-law’s and the King’s eyes and an angel who can do no wrong. What’s more, she is terribly mistreated by her husband and heartbroken. I should feel sorry for her.

But her actions show that she’s far from weak and inactive. I don’t need to feel sorry for her. She’s mentally and physically robust, she’s task-driven, single-minded in chasing what she wants, to the point of stubbornness and tunnel vision.

One thing I notice is that who she is to others and who she is to herself are not the same. For example, right at the beginning Act 1 Scene 1, everyone thinks she’s always crying because her father just passed away, but when we hear from her own mouth,

“I think not on my father, and these great tears grace his remembrance more than those I shed for him. What was he like? I have forgot him. My imagination carries no favour in’t but Bertram’s.” Meaning, the floods of tears she is shedding because of her unrequited love for Bertram do more honour to her father’s memory than did the fewer tears wept at his death. What rubbish! She has completely forgotten about her father, she’s actually crying for Bertram. I think I dislike her and distrust her from that point on.

When she runs after Bertram, she tells the Countess that “He is too good and fair for death and me, whom I myself embrace, to set him free.” – I’m going to sacrificially get myself killed, so he’s not bound by this marriage anymore. But next thing you know, far from being dead and releasing him, she’s ever actively plotting to steal his ring and to sneak into his bed, thus securing the marriage.

But one thing I dislike her even more is her desire for Bertram. Her hunger for Bertram. I will have this man in my house, in my bed, no matter the cost, no matter how far I have to go, no matter who I have to make use of, be it a King or a poor widow’s daughter, whether he likes it or not. She’s completely obsessed with him!

In the Introduction, Jonathan Bate quotes two opinions:

One person thinks, “Helen exemplified the virtue of patience in the face of adversity and male infidelity: ‘There never was, perhaps, a more beautiful picture of a woman’s love, cherished in secret, not self-consuming in silent languishment… but patient and hopeful, strong in its own intensity, and sustained by its own fond faith.’”

The other thinks “Helen as belonging to the ‘doormat’ type: ‘They bear any amount of humiliation from the men they love, seem almost to enjoy being maltreated and scorned by them, and hunt them down in the most undignified way when they are trying to escape.’”

I have to say I agree more with the second opinion. Reason one: The way she kisses the ground he walks on in utter adoration and humiliation is repulsive – in her desire and fantasy about the man, she loses self-respect. A few examples:

She keeps emphasising her inferiority and seems to take pleasure in emphasising the distance between them:

“There all one that I should love a bright particular star and think to wed it, he is so above me.” Helen is socially inferior to Bertram, in her eyes, to dream of marrying him she might as well dream of marrying a burning gas ball.

When Parolles delivers the message that Bertram is going away straight after the wedding, she says “In everything I wait upon his will”.

When Bertram fails to avoid her and repeats the same message, she says “Sir, I can nothing say, but that I am your most obedient servant.” Bertram replies, “Come, come, no more of that.” meaning, stop reminding us about your lowly birth, but she keeps on going, “And ever shall with true observance seek to eke out that wherein toward me my homely stars have failed to equal my great fortune.” meaning, my humble origins make me unworthy to be your wife, but I’ll do my best to make it up by a mountain of dutiful service to you. Bertram replies again, “Let that go.” And she again says, “I am not worthy of the wealth I owe, not dare I say ‘tis mine, and yet it is.”

Why does she keep saying it? What is she thinking when she says it? Is she sad because her husband doesn’t love her and runs away from her? Or is she resentful? Does she suffer from low self-esteem, genuinely feel she’s too lowly and unworthy, like a worm in the dust, and he can treat her however he likes?

Or does she wear her humiliation and inferiority as a victorious badge – you’re so above me, yet you’re in the palm of my hand now? Especially the last sentence, “I am not worthy of the wealth I owe, not dare I say ‘tis mine, and yet it is.” Is she having a triumphant evil laugh inside when she said “yet it is”?

In the last example, right at the very end, Helen appears with the proof that she has completed the challenges, standing there with her ‘loot’, the ring and a bulging belly, asking “Will you be mine, now you are doubly won?” She’s begging him to love her.

I just hate seeing a woman begging for love. More than family background, it’s love that makes Helen lowly. How can I make you love me? I’ll do whatever you ask, just say it. I feel sorry for this young woman losing herself and self-respect in pursuit of so-called love.

Reason two: the way she entraps him against his will does not make me feel sympathy or warmth towards her – in her desperation to take ownership of the man, her manipulation is shocking, esp. when you remember how others praise her womanly virtue. 

The contradictions in her character and the inconsistency of her image continue to trouble me. Right at the end of the play, both Bertram and the King ask her to explain how she completed the tasks. At which point, the play ends. We don’t see their reaction.

But if they hear Helen “from point to point” explain how she basically has tricked Bertram ruthlessly, will they change their good opinion of her, will they be shocked? Will she remain an angel? Bertram says “if she can make me know this clearly, I’ll love her dearly, ever, ever dearly.” Will he actually love her when he hears the truth, how he is hunted and trapped like an animal?

If Helen has proved her true worth to Bertram in better ways, I might have cheered her on. Because if we trust the judgement of the Countess and the King, Helen is lowly but worthy. But she chooses to win his love on his terms, using pretty shady methods.

In Orlando by Virginia Woolf, there’s a small sentence: The deception roused her scorn; the truth roused her pity. That sums up how I feel about Helen. Her deception roused my scorn; the truth roused my pity.

I do not approve of a lot of the things she does throughout the play. But I do feel sorry for her. Before she says “Will you be mine?”, she says, “O my good lord, when I was like this maid, I found you wondrous kind.” She only tastes Bertram’s love when she’s disguised as Diana. Bertram only loves her when he thinks she’s someone else. That’s tragic! I feel sorry for her knowing she does what she does because she can’t help it, because she has misjudged Bertram and, more devastatingly, misjudged herself.

Helen is so virtuous, talented, and capable, but she focuses all her energy on the wrong thing. She creates a perfect image of Bertram in fantasy, which nearly ruins both of them. Shakespeare kindly gives them a happy ending but what will their marriage be like after the curtain falls, I’m not optimistic.

Food for thought at the end, imagine if you reverse the gender roles, how would it play out and how would it affect your response to the characters? I find it a fascinating thought experiment.