All's Well That Ends Well as a fairy tale and morality play Shakespeare used two ancient forms of narration in writing All's Well That Ends Well. One, the fairy tale, he inherited from its source. The other, the morality play, he put into the story. The type of fairy tales and folktales of which All's Well That Ends Well is an example are known as virtue stories. These are made up of two main sections: The Healing of the King and The Fulfillment of Tasks. These tales can be found in the ancient literature of cultures around the world and have two qualities in common: the intelligence and devotion of the woman sent by her husband to carry out the tasks, and the husband's immediate acceptance of the fulfillment of the tasks. tasks as evidence. of his wife's courage and love. The healing of the king in the well of all is a variation of a common folk theme: a hero wins the hand of the king's daughter by performing a difficult task, in which failure will cost him his life. Boccaccio and Shakespeare add interest by swapping the genders of the characters. Shakespeare also drew inspiration from morality plays, a popular medieval theatrical form in which characters representing good and evil fight for the hero's soul. In All's Well Shakespeare created similar relationships by adding the character of Parolles. Parolles acts as the personified Deputy and Helena acts as Divine Grace. Together they fight for the soul of Bertram, the unredeemed man. Shakespeare carefully interweaves these two forms into two main points of the action. Helena's healing of the king operates on the level of fairy tale and also carries hints of the miraculous. Lafeu calls it "A representation of a celestial effect in an earthly actor." At the end of the play, Bertram's acceptance of Helena fits the shape of Virtue's story. It also reflects the point in moral plays when the unredeemed man, burdened by sin and on the verge of being brought to the eternal torments of hell, asks for mercy. However, unlike characters in morality plays and fairy tales, Shakespeare's characters are realistic in their motivations and behavior. Can a fairy tale work in the complex lives of real people??