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Why does Bertram refuse to take Helen as a wife?
Bertram rejects Helen on the grounds that she’s too lowborn for him. As a count, Bertram is part of the French nobility. Helen, by contrast, is the daughter of a physician. Though she grew up near a highborn family, and though her father served members of the nobility, she herself has no claim to noble status. Essentially, then, Bertram refuses Helen for reasons of social class. What’s ironic is that everyone but Bertram sees Helen’s nobility of spirit and ranks her highly because of it. The King of France even expresses his willingness to make her noble by endowing her with an inheritance. In this way, Bertram’s class consciousness proves cruelly inflexible.
Why does Helen pursue Bertram after he rejects her?
This is a question that generations of critics and audiences have asked of the play, and a question that doesn’t have a single answer. From one perspective, Helen’s love for Bertram may be understood as a girlish crush. She’s admired Bertram for much of her life, and now that she has a chance to claim him as a husband, she goes for it. This answer isn’t especially generous to Helen, since it reduces her role in the play to that of a lovesick girl, whereas she also proves intelligent and resourceful. However, it’s difficult to understand her motivation for pursuing a man who repeatedly reveals his shortcomings of character. The lack of a single, clear explanation helps explain why many consider All’s Well That Ends Well a “problem” comedy.
What is Bertram’s ultimatum for Helen?
In act 3, scene 2, Helen receives a letter from Bertram in which he lays out the conditions on which he will accept her as a wife. The first condition is that she must get him to give her his ancestral ring. The second condition is that she must give birth to his child. He believes that both conditions are impossible to fulfill, since he has no plans either to give up his ring or to consummate their marriage. Therefore, his ultimatum is designed to forestall any possibility of a meaningful future union.
Why does Bertram disown Parolles?
Bertram disowns Parolles at the end of act 4, when he finds out that Parolles has falsely presented himself as a valiant and honorable soldier. Never an especially perceptive man, Bertram fails to note what everyone else seems to perceive immediately: that Parolles is all talk and no action. To disabuse Bertram of his illusions about Parolles, the First and Second Lords Dumaine contrive a plot in which they pretend to arrest Parolles and interrogate him. Unaware of who’s really “captured” him, Parolles immediately gives up critical information about his own companions. In response, Bertram rejects him. Ironically, though, we’ll see in act 5 that Bertram behaves in a way not dissimilar to Parolles when he’s backed into a corner.
How does Helen finally win Bertram as a husband?
Helen finally wins Bertram by orchestrating an intricate plot designed to fulfill the seemingly impossible conditions of his ultimatum. Those conditions are: (1) to get his ancestral ring, and (2) to conceive his child. Helen fulfills both conditions with the help of Diana, a virgin whom Bertram courts while he’s in Florence. Diana agrees to sleep with Bertram on the condition that he give her his ring, which he does. But instead of sleeping with Bertram herself, Diana secretly trades places with Helen so that Bertram has sex with Helen. This type of bait and switch is conventionally known as a “bed trick.” Thus, unbeknownst to Bertram, Helen ends up with his ring and gets pregnant with his child, thereby fulfilling both conditions of his ultimatum. With no other recourse to reject her, Bertram agrees to act as Helen’s husband.
