Helena

Helena is usually considered the central figure in the play, and all of the topics discussed above (gender issues/ desire, bed-trick! marriage, social class, and endings; see these sections above and below for more extended commentary) have direct bearing on her character. As the heroine of All's Well That Ends Well Helena is often described by her admiring commentators as noble, virtuous, honorable, and regenerative, and by her detractors as obsessive, degraded, or narrow-minded. Her single-minded quest to wed Bertram and her actions thereafter inspire and inform these assessments of her. Most critics fall in between strict admiration or abhorrence of her, finding her a complex character.

Those commentators who unequivocally admire her find her guiltless in plotting to wed Bertram and in fulfilling the terms of his letter through the bed-trick One critic even refers to her as a "genius." Scholars who are decidedly critical of...