HELENA BY SINEAD MCCRAITH WHO IS SHE Helena

HELENA BY SINEAD MCCRAITH

WHO IS SHE? • Helena is portrayed as the character that nobody loves. She is the best representation of unrequited love • She has lots of insecurities and even when both Lysander and Demetrius are in love with her, she believes they are mocking her • She lacks the confidence that comes with love • She is the best representation of stereotypical women at the time the play was written weak and reliant on men

WHO IS SHE AT THE: START OF THE PLAY At the beginning of the play Helena is conveyed as a victim of unrequited love and although she knows that Demetrius does not love her and is treating her so badly, she does not give up on him. Helena is first portrayed to the audience as a fairly beautiful girl who won’t get past her insecurities because the man she loves does not love her back She is extremely self conscience and compares herself to Hermia. She doesn’t allow anyone to give her a compliment which is seen in Act 1 scene 1

ACT 1 SCENE 1 HERMIA Godspeed, fair Helena! Whither away? First impression of Helena: shows how much she pities herself and that she believes Hermia is so much more beautiful than she is HELENA Call you me “fair”? That “fair” again unsay. Demetrius loves your fair. O happy fair! Comparing Hermia to natures beauties Your eyes are lodestars, and your tongue’s sweet air She thinks she is a sickness compared to Hermia More tunable than lark to shepherd’s ear When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear. Sickness is catching. Oh, were favor so, Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go. Personification adds rich imagery to the descriptions My ear should catch your voice. My eye, your eye. My tongue should catch your tongue’s sweet melody. Simple rhyming adds rhythm to her whining like it’s a constant beat Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated, The rest I’d give to be to you translated O’ teach me how you look and with what art you sway the motion of Demetrius’ heart “Art you sway” like she is using some form of magic

HELENA SOLILOQUY HELENA How happy some o'er other some can be! Through Athens I am thought as fair as she. But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so. He will not know what all but he do know. And as he errs, doting on Hermia’s eyes, So I, admiring of his qualities. Love Things base and vile, holding no quantity, makes you do Love can transpose to form and dignity. silly Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind. things And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind. Nor hath Love’s mind of any judgment taste— Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste. Gives audience an idea of Helena’s idea about love Comparing love to children and how when in love they act like children And therefore is Love said to be a child, Because in choice he is so oft beguiled. As waggish boys in game themselves forswear, So the boy Love is perjured everywhere. For ere Demetrius looked on Hermia’s eyne, He hailed down oaths that he was only mine. And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt, So he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt. I will go tell him of fair Hermia’s flight. Then to the wood will he tomorrow night Pursue her. And for this intelligence If I have thanks, it is a dear expense. But herein mean I to enrich my pain, To have his sight thither and back again. Helena has just showed how love can make you do silly things. She’s contradicted herself completely!

DURING THE PROBLEM There are many problems during the play but the main problem for Helena is that due to a love potion, both Demetrius and Lysander are in love with her. At the beginning we learn that Helena is in love with Demetrius so the audience wouldn’t think him being in love with her would be a problem however due to her lack of self confidence she is convinced that both men are mocking her and making fun of love. Something that has swayed all her previous decisions in the play.

ACT 3 SCENE 2 HELENA Helena believes that the boys are trying to gang up on her for their own enjoyment O spite! O hell! I see you all are bent To set against me for your merriment. If you were civil and knew courtesy, Trying to make them pity her or tell her that they don’t her i. e. do my legs look fat in this? You would not do me thus much injury. Can you not hate me, as I know you do, Naming them as souls meaning that they are acting with their hearts and not with their minds But you must join in souls to mock me too? If you were men, as men you are in show, You would not use a gentle lady so To vow, and swear, and superpraise my parts, Questioning their masculinity When I am sure you hate me with your hearts. Naming herself as Helena rather than I to induce more pity “poor Helena” You both are rivals, and love Hermia, And now both rivals to mock Helena— A trim exploit, a manly enterprise, To conjure tears up in a poor maid’s eyes With your derision! None of noble sort Would so offend a virgin, and extort A poor soul’s patience, all to make you sport. Comparing self to a maid shows how she thinks of herself as maids are at the bottom of hierarchy at the time

All the problems in the play are resolved at the end for all the characters. Demetrius is in love with Helena like she always wanted and Lysander is back in love with Hermia. Helena is rightly satisfied with Demetrius’ love for her yet she continues to question his motifs and believes he could run away from her again like he did for Hermia AT THE END

ACT 4 SCENE 1 DEMETRIUS Other characters are unsure of what exactly happened last night and feel like it was a dream These things seem small and undistinguishable, Like far-off moutains turned into clouds. HERMIA Methinks I see these things with parted eye, Helena knows now that she has Demetrius yet she is still true to her original character as feels someone could easily come and claim the “jewel” as theirs When everything seems double. HELENA And I have found Demetrius, like a jewel, Mine own, and not mine own DEMETRIUS Are you sure that we are awake? It seems to me That yet we sleep, we dream

SUMMARY The development of Helena is guided by the other characters in the play She is still unsure of herself and easily blames any problem on her own faults and is not one hundred percent sure that Demetrius could love her The main characterisation of Helena is that she is no longer under the “potion of love” and all her actions are not silly due to her need to be loved