As I noted in my original plot synopsis for Act One of All’s Well That Ends Well, the opening of the play is saturated with images of dead or dying father figures. In being sent as a ward to the King of France, Bertram “weep(s) o’er (his) father’s death anew” (I.i.3-4), and in this same event, the countess says that she buries “ a second husband” (I.i.1-2).
Of course, even after multiple readings of this, I’m a little confused. Was the late count her “second husband” or is having her son taken from her removing from her life “the male head of a household” (“husband, n.; I.1” Oxford English Dictionary Online. Oxford University Press, June 2015. Web. 7 September 2015.)? But if Bertram is young enough to be taken as a ward, could he really be the head of the household? but I digress…
Continue reading “Daddy (Death) Issues…”