SOURCE: "The King and the Physician's Daughter: All's Well That Ends Well and the Late Romances," in Comparative Drama, Vol. 8, No. 4, Winter, 1974-75, pp. 311-27.

In this essay, Wheeler contends that, unlike the festive comedies, All's Well That Ends Well "presents an action in which parental figures are closely and actively involved in the steps that lead to marriage. "

In his now classic formulation of "The Argument of Comedy," Northrop Frye called attention to the unusual turn Shakespeare gives the typical comic pattern in All's Well that Ends Well—and noted the difficulties this alteration has posed for critics:

The normal comic resolution is the surrender of the senex to the hero, never the reverse. Shakespeare tried to reverse the pattern in Alls Well that Ends Well, where the king of France forces Bertram to marry Helena, and the critics have not yet stopped making faces over it...