All's Well That Ends Well

The play’s theme of Female Agency and Social Expectations grows in the third Act to show Helen displaying her willpower and determination in capturing Bertram. Though she and the Countess are dismayed by Bertram’s decision to go to war, the Countess chooses Helen, whether out of personal love or feminine solidarity, denouncing Bertram as her son by declaring: “He was my son, / But I do wash his name out of my blood, / And thou art all my child” (3.2.69-71). In this declaration, the Countess is explicitly choosing Helen over Bertram, reflecting her earlier discussion with Helen about being her mother, and creating a united front of herself and Helen against Bertram. Though Helen leaves Rossillion, which would seem to betray this alliance with the Countess, she creates a new feminine solidarity in Florence, co-opting the Widow of Florence and her daughters to help her trick Bertram. The ethics of Helen’s actions are acknowledged as questionable, reflecting an emerging theme of The Question of Whether the End Justifies the Means. Helen herself tells the Widow that their plot against Bertram “Is wicked meaning in a lawful deed, / And lawful meaning in a lawful act, / Where both not sin, and yet a sinful fact” (3.7.51-53). The “wicked meaning” is Bertram’s intention to take Diana’s virginity, while the “lawful deed” is Bertram sleeping with his wife, Helen. Likewise, though, the “lawful meaning” is Helen’s intention of sleeping with her husband, which she emphasizes as a “lawful act.” Her wordplay in this passage reflects how she knows that she is tricking Bertram, but she is only able to trick him through his own unlawful or sinful intention, which is committing adultery and taking Diana’s virginity outside of marriage. If Bertram truly believed in his oath to love war and hate love, then he would not be open to Helen’s manipulation, which relies on his exploitative intent to sleep with Diana. The women’s plot reclaims the sexual power and agency that Bertram assumes when he behaves without compunction for his own sexual gratification.

The Nature of True Love and Duty is likewise further complicated by Bertram’s insistence on pursuing Diana. Though he does not love Helen, neither does he love Diana. He has “sent to her […] Tokens and letters, which she did re-send” (3.6.117-19), which suggests he has not spoken to her and his attraction is merely physical. Moreover, although she has rejected his advances, the play shows that Bertram chooses to double-down rather than stop respectfully. Although he is proud of his own right to choose or reject a partner, he disregards Diana’s right to do so. He is also shown to be a serial womanizer, as he has seduced other women. The plot and his behavior together raise comic suspense at this point in the play: He seems sure to fall into Helen’s trap because of his lust, lust which he has refused to satisfy in its “proper” place, with his wife. Recalling Bertram’s rejection of Helen on the grounds that she is a commoner, the Widow notes that her “estate be fall’n,” but she is “well born” (3.7.4), meaning that the Widow and her daughters are poor members of the gentry or, possibly, the aristocracy. As such, Diana is a gentlewoman though she lacks money. She may be closer to meeting Bertram’s stated social criteria but, in fact, her social status does not accord her his respect, revealing him as a hypocrite. Her social status is also important because, in the norms of the time, her virginity has a higher value than that of a woman of lower social status. In seducing a young woman of good birth outside marriage, Bertram commits a crime against honor and society. Indeed, in Shakespeare’s time, a woman’s family could seek legal recompense in this situation. This is key to The Social Construct of Honor and Reputation.

Parolles’s narrative arc, which runs alongside the main plot, also adds a new dimension to The Social Construct of Honor and Reputation, as Bertram begins to believe what Lafew told him before Bertram left the French court. The other French lords convince Bertram to trick Parolles into behaving like a coward, calling Parolles “a most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly promise-breaker” (3.6.9-11), and more. These insults reflect reputation, specifically, though, so Bertram is not convinced. He needs evidence of Parolles’s honor, or lack of honor, so he agrees to trap Parolles. The need for a trap shows the distinction between honor and reputation, in which honor is shown in actions, while reputation is passed by word of mouth. This situation, then, reflects Helen’s predicament, in which her public status, through Bertram and Parolles’s account, is as a woman of low class, with connotations of social and financial climbing, while her actions, according to the King and Countess, show virtue and nobleness.