All's Well That Ends Well

The primary theme of Act IV is The Question of Whether the End Justifies the Means, as multiple deceits propel the plot toward its conclusion. Bertram’s regiment tricks Parolles, and Helen tricks Bertram, with each trick carrying a complex moral weight. These scenes combine comedy and pathos in their unsettling mixture of cruelty and justice, essential to the ambiguous, problematic nature of the play. For Parolles, the issue lies within The Social Construct of Honor and Reputation, as Parolles seems to value neither. Parolles questions himself, noting how his “tongue is too foolhardy, but my heart hath the fear of Mars before it, and of his creatures, not daring the reports of my tongue” (4.1.30-32), meaning that Parolles, though he talks bravely, is afraid of the pain and death that come with battle. This statement could be taken another way, however, as Parolles could be saying that he makes bold claims because he is afraid of how his fellow soldiers would react if he declined to retrieve the drum. In either case, he reveals himself as a coward and a braggard. Part of the social construction of honor lies in the way people perceive each other, and Parolles brags because he knows that boldness is the only way to garner a positive reputation. He is unable to reinforce his claims with actions—because of his cowardice—but he is also a social coward, unable to stop himself from bragging because he may be shunned as dishonorable. His fear is of Mars, the god of war, as Mars, like true soldiers, hates cowards.

The process through which the regiment tricks Parolles is arguably cruel or immoral, especially because the war is already over (unknown to Parolles) and so Parolles’s revelation of military secrets is not treasonable in fact, only in his intention. His weak character is revealed and he is shamed. However, these “means” of the trick are simultaneously justified by the “end” of Parolles’s betrayal of the regiment. The second lord, Captain Dumaine, notes that Bertram, like Parolles, commits a “treason,” or betrayal: Parolles betrays his regiment, which leads to the “abhorred ends” of torture, while Bertram’s “action contrives against his own nobility” (4.3.23-26), by seducing Diana. Bertram’s seduction of Diana, though damaging to his reputation, relates to The Nature of True Love and Duty, as Bertram makes oaths to Diana. At first, he says he wishes to make her “as your mother was / When your sweet self was got” (4.2.10-11) i.e., to take her virginity. His deliberate ambiguity here might, he hopes, lead Diana to assume he means to offer marriage (as her mother was married), without making her an undeniable offer. But Diana is too clever, and she calls him out when she asserts her and her family’s honor by pointing out that her mother was married. When at last Bertram states to Diana, “my ring. / My house, mine honor, yea, my life be thine” (4.2.62-63), his intention is not genuinely to marry Diana, but his words cannot be construed as anything other than a firm offer of marriage. Parolles’s estimation of Bertram, much like the Widow’s, is shown to be correct, as Bertram is an unscrupulous womanizer. At the end of the Act, Diana is coming to Marseilles, but she is coming with Helen and the Widow, not Bertram. Bertram has broken his promises: Directly after, as he thinks, sleeping with her, he has abandoned her in Florence. He has immediately made a more socially eligible match with Lafew’s daughter, now the third woman he has made marriage promises to.

This knowledge of Bertram’s poor character changes the moral nature of Helen’s trap for him: Bertram has shown his abandonment of Helen to be less because of the unusual circumstances of their relationship but rather as a pattern of dishonorable behavior toward women, even those, like Diana, of his class. Helen’s plot lies at the intersection of questionable means for justified ends and Female Agency and Social Conventions. In addition to using Diana and the Count’s ring, Helen sends letters reporting her death, thereby allowing her to act without suspicion. Helen comments how “lust doth play / With what it loathes for that which is away” (4.4.26-27), revealing that Bertram slept with Helen thinking she was Diana, which forms the crucial element in Helen’s plot. Helen apologizes to Diana for the risk of causing Bertram to think—and report to his friends—that he slept with Diana: Bertram is not only willing to take her honor (her virginity) but to tarnish her reputation also by speaking of his deeds. Thus, although Helen apologizes, she highlights how Bertram is at fault. Much like Parolles—whom Bertram treats with cruelty and disdain in the trick of his own—Bertram would not be tricked by the women if he were not dishonorable himself. Feminine agency, in this case, is expressed in the unity between the Widow, Helen, and Diana, who have acted in solidarity to each other’s benefit.