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characters, the struggle to
resolve an ethical dilemma, and
the experience of emotional
suffering including grief. All’s
Well fits all of these criteria. Its
mingling of comedy and tragedy
is beautifully exemplified by Helen
when, having been declared dead,
she reappears on stage “quick,”
which means both alive and
pregnant. Yet even this joyful
conclusion has often been felt
to be overshadowed by the
darker undercurrents of the play.
Ambivalent virtue
The first problem is Bertram. If we
are to delight in Helen’s achieving
her ambition to marry him, we have
to believe that he is worthy—and
this is where audiences have
struggled. In general, the play
sees human beings as deeply
ambivalent: “Our virtues would
be proud / if our faults whipped
them not, and our crimes would /
despair if they were not cherished
by our virtues” (4.3.75–77). He
demonstrates courage and loyalty
as a soldier, but at the same time,
he is trying to seduce a young
virgin with false promises. In the
final scene, he expresses remorse
for Helen’s loss and even claims to
love her, but then shows himself
to be incapable of telling the truth,
slandering Diana, whom he had
also professed to love.
We might defend Bertram on
the grounds that he is suffering
from the crisis of masculinity that
occurs elsewhere in Shakespeare.
Like Adonis, who prefers hunting
the boar over Venus’s seductions in
Shakespeare’s poem Venus and
Adonis, Bertram is still young, and
in the process of becoming a man.
The desire of a woman like Helen
threatens to confine him in the
feminine domestic space he has
only just succeeded in escaping.
Bertram also falls foul of the
institution of wardship. This
was a system, much criticized in
Shakespeare’s time, that gave an
elder guardian control over the
young man’s marriage, usually to
his/her own advantage. In All’s
Well, we might argue that it is
unfair on Bertram that he should
be married to pay the King’s debt,
and especially to a woman whom
he declares he cannot love. Equally
troubling is the emasculation that
is built into this process. The
King’s wards are paraded in front
of Helen so that she may “send
forth [her] eye” (2.3.53) and choose
one. By this means, Helen adopts
the traditionally masculine role
of wooer, while Bertram is
placed in the role of passive
female. There is even an echo of
Capulet in Romeo and Juliet in
the King’s threats to exile andTHE KING’S MAN
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.
Helen
Act 1, Scene 1revenge himself upon Bertram,
which would place Bertram in
the role of Juliet.
This all matters less if we
can believe that the marriage of
Bertram and Helen will prove a
good thing for him as well as
for her. But the play struggles
to reconcile the forceful and
manipulative Helen with
contemporary ideals of female
modesty and submissiveness. ❯❯Helen (Joanna Horton, in this 2013
RSC production) cures the king (Greg
Hicks) using her father’s drugs. As a
reward, Helen is offered a choice of
husbands. She chooses Bertram.