All's Well That Ends Well | Bertram
In this excerpt, Richard Wheeler argues that examining the character of Bertram can "help identify unresolved tensions" in the play. Wheeler argues that Bertram finds his situation at court intolerable and has to escape, especially when forced into a marriage by the King, a father-figure, with the approval of his mother (in essence, his parents are forcing him to do something aganst his will). Bertram wants to experience the world, physically and sexually. Through Bertram's actions, Shakespeare orchestrates his ultimate retrieval.
Shakespeare's decision to base a comedy on Boccaccio's story about a young man who flees rather than pursues his eventual wife, despises rather than adores her, creates for All's Well That Ends Well an altered set of comic conflicts. Instead of accommodating the marital aspirations of a Bassanio or an Orlando, the play's action must bring Bertram to accept Helena as his wife. Before this action is completed, the young count is identified at various moments as a nobleman of great promise, an object of adoration, a complete fool, a snob, an ungrateful son and subject, a whimpering...
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