All's Well That Ends Well | Overview
In this selection, Anne Barton postulates that the plot of All's Well That Ends Well is nothing out of the ordinary in its day—similar folk motifs and story elements could be found in the literature of other languages and in literature of the past. Barton also discusses the play's nostalgia for the past and the notion of honor as they pertain to the play's main characters.
The plot of All's Well That Ends Well is a tissue of traditional folk motifs. The story of the abandoned wife who performs a seemingly impossible series of tasks in order to regain her husband is at least as old as the myth of Eros and Psyche. It has analogues in many of the literatures of the world. The hero or heroine who achieves great good fortune by knowing how to cure the sickness of the king when everyone else has failed, the bed-trick, the exchange of rings, and the association of virginity with magical power are all story elements with reverberations orginating far back in...
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