In Act 1, Scene 1, Parolles uses two similes, and employs visual and tactile imagery to criticize the concept of virginity. He states, teasing Helen, that:
Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out of
fashion, richly suited but unsuitable [...]And your virginity, your old virginity, is like one of our French withered pears: it looks ill, it eats dryly.
Parolles employs two similes in this quotation. He compares virginity to an “old courtier” wearing out-of-fashion clothes, and to a “withered” pear. The term "richly suited but unsuitable" points to the idea of something valuable but not desirable: virginity is important (“richly suited” or extravagantly dressed) but “unsuitable.” The tactile imagery of a dry and mealy pear invokes an unpleasant sensation of texture for the reader. It portrays virginity as something that may look valuable but is ultimately unappealing. It’s also a lewd joke: Parolles implies that virgins, who aren’t having sex, are “dry.”
In this passage, Parolles conveys his cynicism toward the concept of preserving virginity. In a world where virginity is highly prized, the similes and imagery used here emphasize the limitations associated with an idealized, pure, sexless life. All’s Well That Ends Well spends a lot of time with the problems caused by idealization, as seen in Helen’s admiration for Bertram (in the same Act, she compares him to a distant star). Parolles’s blunt and often funny use of figurative language and simile serves as a counterbalance to this dreamy, unrealistic attitude. Some characters are preoccupied with lofty ideals and nobility, but Parolles grounds the narrative of the play. He brings a different, more cynical lens to its approach to love and honor.
At the beginning of All’s Well That Ends Well, Helen reveals her sense of inadequacy; she feels she cannot win Bertram's love. She expresses this hopeless desire through a metaphor:
’Twere all one
That I should love a bright particular starAnd think to wed it, he is so above me
In this metaphor, Helen compares Bertram to a "bright particular star," pointing to his high status and her belief that he is utterly unattainable. Just as it would be impossible to marry or possess a star, Helen sees her chances of winning Bertram's love as equally impossible.
The metaphor also holds further layers of meaning when considered in the historical context of Shakespeare's time. During this era, social hierarchy and class distinctions were far more rigid than they now are. People born into noble families, like Bertram, would have been viewed as insurmountably distant from ordinary people. Helen, who’s of a lower social standing, uses the metaphor of a star to portray the huge gap between her and the object of her love.
Through this metaphor, Helen expresses her deep admiration and longing for Bertram, emphasizing the vast difference in their positions. The metaphor underscores the apparent impossibility of their union, and the negative feelings about her own personality and position in life that these provoke in Helen. The self-disparaging use of “'Twere all one” also supports this: it’s a period-specific way of saying “of course it would have to be this way.”
Tearfully confessing her love for Bertram to his mother the Countess, Helen employs a metaphor of water, and visual and tactile imagery. On her knees before the Countess, Helen pleads:
Be not offended, for it hurts not him
That he is loved of me. I follow him not
By any token of presumptuous suit,
Nor would I have him till I do deserve him,
Yet never know how that desert should be.
I know I love in vain, strive against hope,
Yet in this captious and intenible sieve
I still pour in the waters of my love
And lack not to lose still.
Helen uses a metaphor comparing her unrequited love for Bertram to water poured into a sieve in this quotation. This useless labor represents the futility and endlessness of her affection. This metaphor is accompanied by tactile imagery, where words like “pour” evoke sensations of wetness and fluidity. The word “desert” suggests dryness, which contrasts with the water in the first metaphor.
However, in the language of Shakespeare’s time, it also means “deserve.” Helen is saying that she doesn’t have any idea how she could possibly win his love. The passage is full of paradoxes, much as Helen’s love of Bertram is. She wants Bertram but doesn’t want to, wants to deserve him but doesn’t think she can. She pours her love for Bertram into the “captious and intenible” (large and incapable of retaining) sieve of these paradoxes, striving “against hope.”
In Act 4, Scene 5, Lafew and the Fool use metaphor, imagery, and allusion to discuss Helen’s remarkable qualities. The conversation goes as follows:
LAFEW: ’Twas a good lady, ’twas a good lady. We may pick a thousand salads ere we light on such another herb.
FOOL: Indeed, sir, she was the sweet marjoram of the salad, or rather the herb of grace.
LAFEW: They are not herbs, you knave. They are nose-herbs.
FOOL: I am no great Nebuchadnezzar, sir. I have not much skill in grass.
Lafew and the Fool employ metaphor and imagery here to compare women to leaves of salad or herbs. While most women are implied to be unremarkable lettuce leaves, Helen is far more than that: she is “sweet marjoram” or “the herb of grace.” The men imply that Helen is the rarest and most gracious of women. The sensory language of smell is also present through the mention of these herbs, evoking the freshness and grace associated with Helen’s character.
The visual imagery here also involves a dirty joke, as “salad” leaves refer to women’s labia. By saying that Helen isn’t a herb for eating (she is a “nose-herb,” or one only for smelling), Lafew implies her purity and virginity.
The Fool also makes an allusion to Nebuchadnezzar in this passage, an ancient Babylonian king. This figure, according to biblical accounts, spent a period living like an animal and eating grass. This allusion humorously ties into the metaphor and imagery of herbs and salads, as well as the sex jokes. It also implies that the Fool doesn’t have much success with women’s “salads.”
When the Fool encounters Parolles delivering a letter in Act 5, Shakespeare makes his distaste for Parolles’s stench apparent through the use of the sensory language of smell, personification, and idiom:
Truly, Fortune’s displeasure is but sluttish if it smell so strongly as thou speak’st of. I will henceforth eat no fish of Fortune’s butt’ring. Prithee, allow the wind.
The Fool employs smell imagery here to liken Parolles’s current unfortunate situation to a repugnant smell. He doesn’t just smell bad: the aroma is akin to bad fish. This vivid imagery is instrumental in painting a picture of the distasteful condition Parolles finds himself in. It highlights his decline from his previous position of respect to one of ridicule. Through the smell imagery, Shakespeare imparts to the audience a tangible sense of Parolles’s disgrace.
Moreover, the Fool utilizes personification by giving human characteristics to “Fortune.” The Fool refers to Fortune’s “displeasure," implying that it’s Parolles’s new state of being that stinks so horribly. The Fool's comparison of Fortune's “displeasure” to a cook saucing fish also appeals to the audience’s sense of smell. Fortune’s “sauce” smells so bad that the Fool has to ask Parolles to “allow the wind” (air himself out).
The word "sluttish" is used in an idiomatic manner here. It doesn’t mean “sexually promiscuous” in this context. Rather, it takes on its older meaning: “sluttish” here means “messy” in a way that was typically used to criticize women.
