The Breaking of Genre in "All's Well that End's Well" by Shakespeare

The play was not exactly a complete comedy, rather, it touched on some serious dilemmas that most people face even today. In terms of successful or failed relationships, Petrarchan (unfulfillable love poetry) that Shakespeare paints, was done in a way that suggests unrequited love does not happens all the time. In "All's Well that Ends Well," the friendship between Helen, who may have been allusion to Helen of Troy, and Bertram became requited love and along the way we were entertained by some first-rate jokes. The level of depth to the play was astonishing. There were jokes about national conflict that were evocative. The brothers Domaine (who were Florentines) did the most commenting about the political situation of the 16th century between Britain, France, Spain, Florence, and even Russia. All in all, "all's well that ends well" according to Helen, who noticeably, was a commoner and then a noblewoman, which stressed the ideal that women and men from different classes can marry. The French were made fun of big time but the Domaine brothers rectified the barraging and the main characters themselves by simply marrying like they should have from the beginning. The play was hugely entertaining.

Above: Helen of Troy

The play crossed genres, at first, (you know, with the failed marriage and the "lascivious" nature of Bertram), reminded me of “Lady Audley’s Secret” by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, however the genders were reversed; instead, Bertram left his wife in Shakespeare’s play whereas in Braddon’s novel, Lady Audley had (similarly) a separate identity and remarried despite being married to George Talboys. That novel by many fits under the umbrella of sensational fiction.  And of course, Shakespeare was the first to come up with such a story (although maybe a myth existed beforehand that Shakespeare took his ideas from). The play was a tragedy with comical jesting made by most of the male characters, at least I thought it headed in that direction.

When the King of France entered the scene, he was filled with so much pomp and authority that even though I did not see any actors perform the play, I could not stop laughing at his liberality in terms of lethal force. In act 5, after Paroles was told that he would be put to death because of treason, essentially, Shakespeare takes that same motif and applies it to Bertram.

Above: An example of a musical motif (the downward contour towards the latter half of every measure)

Shakespeare plays with the expectations of marriage throughout the play of which rules, especially of divorce, had stricter ones associated with it than they are today. The King, who jumps to conclusions magnanimously, symbolized the enforcer of marriage like a true Catholic, perhaps, as we think Shakespeare might have been. In the end, everything ends pleasantly: the women who sleep with Bertrand in addition to his wife (one in Florence and the other a woman in France, Diana,) are not forgotten. They end up coming to the conclusion that Bertram does not deserve their love. All in all, like Helen put it, “All’s Well that Ends Well,” because Helen’s dubious marriage with her original crush ends up being a successful one. The alternative would have been pushing the limits of socially acceptable rules of conduct in Shakespeare’s era. Perhaps Shakespeare was warming up to the fact that one could divorce even though it might be undesirable generally for one of the party members involved. Nonetheless, marriage’s institution that was important in Shakespeare’s time seems to be upheld in the moral message of the play.