“A young man married is a man that’s marred” is the opinion of that loudly-dressed, loudly-spoken, class-A blowhard Parolles in “All’s Well That Ends Well”. He’s expressing his support for his friend Bertram, who has just been married under duress to a woman he doesn’t love, and has decided to run away and join the army in a far-off war rather than spend the night with her. As solutions go, it seems pretty extreme, but Parolles believes that marriage and settling down ruins a man’s independence and his chances of bedding other women, and to marry at Bertram’s young age would mean a tragic loss of years of playing the field and having adventures. He’s planning to head to the wars himself, and so is happy to see Bertram joining him, as he predicts glory on the battlefield for them both. His experience in the war turns out to be decidedly less dignified than he imagined.
No comments:
Post a Comment