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Recommended Reading: 600 Classics Reviewed

All's Well That Ends Well

by William Shakespeare

c. 1602-1603

Drama

Comedy

Helena, the daughter of a distinguished physician, cures the King of France of an illness thought to be incurable, and, as a reward, the king offers her any husband she wishes. She chooses Bertram, the son of her ward, the Countess of Rousillon, much to the young man's displeasure.

Helena has been the companion and ward of the Countess of Rousillon since her father's death. The play opens when Bertram, the young son of the countess, and his friend Parolles leave for Paris to enter the service of the King of France. The countess discovers that Helena has fallen in love with Bertram and encourages her to follow Bertram to the French court.

By means of a rare prescription that her father left to her, Helena cures the King of a fistula and is given her choice of a husband. When she chooses Bertram, he rejects her because of her low rank. After their marriage, he sends her home to Rousillon. She receives a letter from him saying that he will never live with her until she obtains the ring from his finger and shows him a child begotten of his body.

By coincidence, Bertram's troops are entering Florence just as Helena returns from a pilgrimage. Bertram is trying to seduce Diana, the daughter of a widow who offers Helena lodging. Helena tells the two women who she is and asks for their assistance.

Diana begs the ring from Bertram and agrees to an assignation with him, but Helena takes her place. Believing Helena to be dead, the countess writes to Bertram, urging him to return. Before he leaves, he discovers the cowardice of his foppish companion Parolles.

Just as Bertram is about to be married to another woman, Diana and her mother appear and insist that he is already married. When Helena is finally led forth, she explains that she has met both the conditions imposed upon her. Bertram promises that if she can make me know this clearly/Ill love her dearly, ever dearly.

Shakespeare complicates the folktale motif of a repudiated wife who fulfills impossible tasks to win her husband by using the circumstances to explore the values of the characters. Ironically, it is the older generation who perceives Helena's worth despite her low birth. In the play, the nobility of a past society is juxtaposed with a present-day world in which fine clothes and rank are valued more than virtue.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Shakespeare, William. "All's Well That Ends Well." Recommended Reading: 600 Classics Reviewed, edited by Editors of Salem Press, Salem Press, 2015. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=6CR_0018.
APA 7th
Shakespeare, W. (2015). All's Well That Ends Well. In E. Salem Press (Ed.), Recommended Reading: 600 Classics Reviewed. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Shakespeare, William. "All's Well That Ends Well." Edited by Editors of Salem Press. Recommended Reading: 600 Classics Reviewed. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2015. Accessed September 15, 2025. online.salempress.com.