All’s Well That Ends Well—Study Guide

All’s Well was published first in the 1623 folio, though it seems to have been written (mainly on the grounds of style) about 1602. It appears among the comedies in the Folio. but its dark tones have led critics often to consider it a ‘problem comedy’, a term first used by F. S. Boas in 1896. The play’s source is William Painter’s translation, published in 1566 in collection of translated novelle, The Palace of Pleasure, of the ninth story of the third day in Boccaccio’s Decameron.

1. Think about the title. What does it mean? Does the play end well? (Does the play end at all?). Where does the phrase appear in the play?

2. Think about the play’s relation to more conventional comic structures: how does Helena differ from the usual comic heroine? how does Bertram differ from conventional comic heroes? What are the implications of the marriage taking place in the middle of the play rather than at the end?

3. Is the epilogue merely a conventional appeal for applause or does it have a more organic relation to the central thematic interests of the play?

4. Think about the clown, Lavatch: what is his function? Is he funny? How does he compare with Feste?

5. What are the implications of Parolles’s name? What importance does he have for the play?

6. Think about Helena’s pursuit of Bertram: how does the play invite us to think about it? Do we sympathize and approve of her desire or with Bertram’s? Both? Neither?

7. Think about the so-called bed-trick that permits the comic ending. How does it affect our sense of the ending? Is it a sleazy trick or a necessary manipulation to allow people to achieve their own best (if unrecognized) interests?

8. What are the implications of war for the comic plot? Who is fighting whom and why? Who cares?

9. Is the king a source of wisdom and an agent of the comic triumph or is he part of the problem?

10.  Think about the social relations on the play, esp. about the structures of families. What does it mean to be a ward of the King? How are class differences  understood and arranged?