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What Is Helena Like In A Midsummer Night's Dream

822 Words4 Pages

Jasmine West
English II
Miss Windish
6 February 2017
A Desperate Lover In the book A Midsummer Night’s Dream, written by Shakespeare, a desperate, loverless mistress in search of a man to love goes on a long, never ending journey full of twists and turns. This book breaks down every possible thought any being could have about the topic of love in a way that catches the reader's attention and urges them to continue reading. Helena is a desperate mistress who pours her love out for a man that will never love her. For example, Helena says, “The more I love, the more he hateth me” (Shakespeare 203). Here, she cries out for her love Demetrius who doesn’t love her, but loves her great friend Hermia. Helena states that the more love she pours out for Demetrius, the more he sways away from her in hopes of having Hermia. She continues to do everything for Demetrius, but he keeps pushing her away and telling her that she is not worthy of him. This does not stop Helena, but only encourages her to try even harder to get her poor Demetrius to be her own. As the book continues on, Hermia is told to make a decision as to who to marry. She is in love with Lysander, but her father wants her to marry Demetrius. Puck is later sent to place a special flower juice onto …show more content…

She asks Hermia to explain what was going on, unknowing that Hermia truly has no idea. Helena immediately thinks Hermia is in on this cruel joke too and is out to get her, just as the boys were before. She shouts at Hermia, “Injurious Hermia! Most ungrateful maid! Have you conspired, have you contrived to bate me with this foul derision” (Shakespeare 198). Here, both Lysander and Demetrius are in love with Helena, and Hermia’s unknowingness frustrates and angers Helena. She later reminds Hermia of the times the two spent together after having a catfight over the two men that are hopelessly in love with

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Helena is in love with Demetrius, but Demetrius is not in love with her. Instead, Demetrius is in love with Hermia. Despite Helena being Hermia’s best friend, Helena’s obsession with Demetrius leads her to betraying Hermia. Helena betrays Hermia by telling Demetrius about Hermia’s plan to elope with Lysander. This shows Helena’s selfish side, as she is willing to hurt and disrupt her best friend’s life to get what she wants.

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Parental love and a regular man and woman relationship. The parental love is between Titania and her “Changeling child” she’s taking care of. This causes a lovers spat between her and Oberon who wanted the child. Hermia, Helena, Lysander, and Demetrius have a convoluted love square that changes many times in the course of Shakespeare’s play. In Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, crazy love is a major theme.

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  Lysander compares himself to Demetrius, saying that he is equal to him in every way.   Lysander then points out that he has something Demetrius will never have, Hermia 's love.   He makes it clear that the couple will do anything to be together.   After Egeus denounces his daughter 's chosen love, Hermia and Lysander,

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Helena just thinks Lysander is joking with her just to hurt her. Hermia wakes up and both Demetrius and Lysander are in love with her, and she thinks that they are both playing a joke on her, so she runs off. When Hermia finds Lysander, he is with Helena and Demetrius. Lysander tells Hermia that she is not what he wants anymore, and that he loves Helena now. Hermia jumps at Helena for stealing Lysander, and Helena doesn’t know what’s going on.

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During the argument between Helena and Hermia, Helena states that they were “like a double cherry, seeming parted but yet an union in partition” (III.ii.214,215)and that they could be considered to be almost identical and very close during their childhood years. Helena’s soliloquy which explains she and Hermia’s past goes further into saying that they were always doing things together and had always been together. This, however, cannot be said to their current situation because love had gotten in between their friendship. Love had separated the two as seen within the arguments between Helena and Hermia. During their argument, Hermia had said, “Her height forsooth, she hath prevailed with him and are you grown so high in esteem because I’m so dwarfish and so low?”

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Love is different for each person. Love expresses itself in many different ways and it is never the same for someone else. In the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, there are several different views on love. Whether it is true, fake, mature or young, it is all love. I will be touching on a few of the main relationships in A Midsummer Night’s Dream including; Lysander and Hermia, Helena and Demetrius and Theseus and Hippolyta.

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This reveals another way the author is attempting to stir up chaos between the two best friends. One example is when Helena says, “Call you me “fair”? That “fair” again unsay. Demetrius loves your fair. O happy fair!”

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The exposition of the story is an old man named Egeus, who approaches Theseus about putting his daughter to death because of her refusal to marry the man of his choice. His daughter, Hermia, is given four days to comply and marry Demetrius, the man that her father has chosen or she will be killed. The rising action of this story is when Lysander, Hermia’s love, proposes the idea of leaving Athens and marrying at his aunt’s house. They planned to meet in the woods that night. Hermia disclosed this plan to her friend Helena, who told Demetrius (the man Hermia’s father had chosen for her to marry).

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Have you ever fallen in love with someone who has no interest in you and doesn’t love you back? Did that person suddenly start loving you out of nowhere? In A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, Helena’s hunger for love brings out a desperate side in her and takes her through interesting adventures with love. One can infer that love is hurtful by how Helena reacts to love in a foolish manner and remains skeptical about it even near the end of the play.

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He is being keen as he says, “And here am ,and wood within this wood, because I can’t meet my Hermia.” (Shakespeare 47) Demetrius is willing to leave his home to go into the woods, to win over Hermia’s love. This causes Helena to follow him and create many problems throughout the woods. As the story goes on He begins to show signs of being dawdle: “So sorrow’s heaviness doth heavier grow, for debt that bankrout doth sorrow owe.”

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Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night’s Dream dealt with the theme of love and its four types, including loves many complications such as disappointment and confusion. The play rotates around different forms of love, two of them being friendship love (Phileo) and romantic (Eros) or true love. Love is the most important theme of the play and the asymmetrical love seen in the play between the four Athenians and romantic encounters cause conflict within the play. There is a strong friendship love between two characters, Hermia and Helena. However, their friendship love is tested throughout the play by their pursuit of true love which, in the end, ultimately prevails.

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Due to the fact that the character’s looks are never specified in Shakespeare’s a Midsummer Night’s Dream, it is up to the reader to decide what the characters look like. The main characters Demetrius, Lysander, Helena and Hermia all have distinct personalities that set themselves apart from each other. Demetrius is a noble with a fickle, and arrogant personality. His image has clothing lined with gold, a look of arrogance, and a fickle personality. First of all, Demetrius’ clothing is lined with gold and other jewels, around the ends of his clothing and boots.

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Leaving Hermia and Lysander to run away in the forest; Lysander then becomes a victim of misapplied magic and wakes up in love with Helena. The trouble comes when Hermia tells her plan to her friend, Helena. Helena loves Demetrius, so she tells him of Hermia and Lysander's idea to run away, and Demetrius follows them, this is where the fairies get involved. “Before the time I did Lysander see / Seem'd Athens as a paradise to me.

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O hated potion, hence!” (Act 3, Scene 2, Lines 270-275) Once Lysander falls in love with Helena and not with Hermia, because of Oberon’s love juice, his former love for Hermia turned to hate rather than apathy. This hate towards Hermia and love for Helena causes him to act very irrational, resulting in violence. Another example is that, even though Demetrius does not love Helena, she is still blindly attached to

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Have you ever fallen in love with someone who has no interest in you and doesn’t love you back? Did that person suddenly start loving you out of nowhere? In A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, Helena’s hunger for love brings out a desperate side in her and takes her through interesting adventures with love. One can infer that Helena is hurt by love when she reacts to love in a foolish manner and remains skeptical about it even near the end of the play.

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