SOURCE: Huston, J. Dennis. “‘Some Stain of Soldier’: The Functions of Parolles in All's Well That Ends Well.” Shakespeare Quarterly 21, no. 4 (autumn 1970): 431-38.

In the following essay, Huston studies the way Parolles, with his unchanneled youthful energy, draws attention to Shakespeare's development of the idea that the energy of society's youth, in order to be constructive and productive, must be directed into the orderly structure of social institutions.

There is in the personality of Parolles, the fashion-minded courtier and pseudo-soldier of All's Well That Ends Well, a curious mixture of the corrupt and the commendable. His conversation is vain, his carriage foolish, and his conduct disgraceful; repeatedly he maligns the heroine, slandering her before her husband, and even more frequently he misguides the hero as he “instructs” him in the ways of courtly life. Yet in spite of all these failings, Parolles still has something to recommend him...