All's Well That Ends Well as a Fairy Tale Morality PlayShakespeare used two ancient forms of storytelling to write All's Well That Ends Well . One, the fairy tale, which he inherited from its source. He integrated the other play, the morality play, into the story. The types of fairy and folk tales of which All's Well That Ends Well is an example are known as virtue stories. These are made up of two main sections: Healing the King and Completing Tasks. These tales are found in ancient literature of cultures around the world and have two qualities in common: the intelligence and dedication of the wife sent by her husband to complete the tasks, and the husband's immediate acceptance of the accomplishment stains as proof. courage and love of women. The King's Cure of All Goes is a variation on a common popular theme: a hero wins the hand of the king's daughter by completing a difficult task, in which failure will cost him his life. Boccaccio and Shakespeare add interest by changing the gender 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 Vice personified and Hélène acts as Divine Grace. Together they fight for the soul of Bertram, the unredeemed man. Shakespeare carefully weaves these two forms together at two major moments in the action. Helen's healing of the king operates on the level of a fairy tale and also contains allusions to the miraculous. Lafeu calls this “a demonstration of a celestial effect in an earthly actor.” At the end of the play, Bertram's acceptance of Helena fits the shape of the Virtue story. This also reflects the point in morality plays where unredeemed man, burdened by sin and about to be carried away to the eternal torments of hell, cries out 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?