All’s Well That Ends Well — A Level Student Guide

Love. Desire. Class. Gender. Consent. Does Shakespeare’s uneasy comedy really end well?

All’s Well That Ends Well is one of Shakespeare’s most intriguing and difficult plays. Often described as a problem play, it combines romantic comedy with uncomfortable questions about marriage, sexuality, social status, personal choice and the pursuit of an unwilling partner.

This comprehensive Coleman’s Notes® Student Guide is designed for A Level English Literature students, helping readers progress from understanding the action to developing sophisticated interpretations of Shakespeare’s characters, language and dramatic methods.

At the centre of the play is Helena, the intelligent daughter of a physician who loves Bertram, the young Count of Roussillon. Their difference in social status appears to make marriage impossible, but Helena cures the seriously ill King of France and is rewarded with the right to choose a husband.

She chooses Bertram.

Bertram, however, rejects the marriage and leaves for the wars in Italy, declaring that he will accept Helena as his wife only when she obtains the ring from his finger and bears his child — conditions he believes impossible to fulfil.

Helena’s determination to overcome those conditions drives the extraordinary events that follow and creates some of the play’s most challenging questions about love, desire, consent and deception.

Alongside this central relationship, Shakespeare presents the boastful Parolles, whose pretensions are spectacularly exposed, while the Countess, the King, Diana and other characters contribute different perspectives on honour, virtue, class and personal responsibility.

Inside the guide: detailed plot and scene coverage; character studies and relationships; major themes and interpretations; language, form and dramatic structure; imagery and symbolism; key quotations and their significance; historical and social context; genre and the problem-play tradition; examination technique; essay planning; model answers; practice examination questions; revision questions; and quick-recall material.

Particular attention is given to Helena, Bertram, Parolles, the Countess of Roussillon, the King of France, Diana and Lafeu, together with the relationships and conflicts through which Shakespeare complicates the conventions of romantic comedy.

Major areas of study include love and desire, marriage, gender and power, consent, class and social mobility, honour and reputation, deception, virtue, sexuality and appearance versus reality.

The guide also examines the questions that make the play particularly rewarding for advanced study: How should we judge Helena’s pursuit of Bertram? Why does Bertram resist her? What does Parolles contribute beyond comedy? How does Shakespeare challenge conventional gender roles? And does the ending genuinely resolve the play’s moral and emotional problems?

Designed for A Level and advanced literary study, the guide supports close textual analysis, consideration of alternative interpretations and the development of sustained critical arguments.

Individual Student Guide — £8.95
Complete Shakespeare Collection 2 — £49.95

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