SOURCE: Hapgood, Robert. “The Life of Shame: Parolles and All's Well.” Essays in Criticism 15, no. 3 (July 1965): 269-78.

In the following essay, Hapgood studies Parolles as a representation of shame in All's Well That Ends Well and notes that the character sacrifices honor in favor of unrestrained living.

The wit of Parolles's name is in the ‘s’—which Irvine and Kökeritz in their pronouncing dictionaries agree in sounding, along with the ‘e’. Altogether of Shakespeare's invention, the name has generally been taken to derive simply from ‘parole’ in the sense of ‘word’ (Lafew plays upon it thus, V, ii, 39). Wilson Knight suggests, in addition, a possible overtone of ‘word of honour’,¹ which seems to me apt; for Parolles is no more a man of his word than a man of few words. To his shame, he is a man of many words. Yet his vivacious talkativeness is also...