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In the play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, by William Shakespeare the contrast between both setting and character are well explained throughout the play. This play is mostly about four young Athenians whose lives become a total disaster because of the fairies in the forest, strange situations in the city of Athens, Greece and mixtures of love potions. The main setting of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is in Athens, Greece. In Athens, the Duke Theseus plans his marriage with Hippolyta. In contrast, the forest is where all the drama happens between all the characters. The four main characters of this play are Hermia, Helena, Demetrius and Lysander. In this writing, I will be discussing about the contrast between both Helena and Hermia. Both Helena and Hermia go through serious issues to find love but they both show the theme in different ways. Helena is described as a tall woman but she is unsure of herself. Despite the fact that she’s tall and Hermia is short; Hermia is a woman full of passion and respect. Throughout this play, questions such as; how is love found? What kinds of people find true love?, are clearly answered. To begin with, this play is filled with comedy but also conflicts between characters. Helena is the kind of woman who has no self-esteem. This is because she does everything to be loved back by a man that doesn’t love her and that is Demetrius. Helena represents a character of a woman that is desperate of having love. In other words, Helena is different from Hermia because she’s an insecure woman full of jealousy. Helena tries to do everything to get Lysander away from her old best friend Hermia. She thinks that love can be found by letting the one you love do anything to you. Consequently, Hermia believes that lo... ... middle of paper ... ...treats her well, she disobeyed her father’s order and ran away with Lysander. At the part where the love potion got mixed up and both man loved Helena, Hermia was very jealous but at the end she found her true lover. In final consideration, both Helena and Hermia represent love but in a totally different ways. It’s the evil and the good gap that is between them two. I also say that, I don’t blame Helena for the things she did because it hurts to be not loved back by someone who you love truly. However, it was a happy ending for both ladies because at the end they both married who they loved. The contrast relates to the meaning of work by how every character has something to do love and they all show it differently. Adding funny comedy scenes and conflicts, the play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by Shakespeare did exactly show what a person goes through to find love.
The mood immediately changes and we discover that Hermia rather than being filled with filial love is determined to marry Lysander rather than her father’s choice for her. And so the love theme is made more complex as we have the wrathful love of her father confronted by the love of her daughter for the man who is not her fathers’ choice. The love theme is further complicated by the arrival of Helena. Here we see the platonic love of two friends.
Love, lust and infatuation all beguile the senses of the characters in this dreamy and whimsical work of Shakespeare, and leads them to act in outlandish ways, which throughly amuses the reader. True love does prevail in the end for Hermia and Lysander, and the initial charm of infatuation ends up proving to have happy consequence for Helena and Demetrius as well. Even when at first the reader thinks that, in theory, the effects the potion will wear off and Lysander will once again reject Helena, Oberon places a blessings on all the couples that they should live happily ever after.
Infatuation causes Helena to lose all sense of dignity, as can be seen when in the woods, she desperately pleads with Demetrius to ?but treat me as your spaniel?. Here, Helena also becomes irrational, obsessed with pursuing Demetrius, though it is obvious that Demetrius is fixated on winning Hermia?s hand in marriage. Helena?s infatuation also causes her to see things from a skewed perspective, for she falsely believes that when she divulges Hermia?s plans for eloping with Lysander, Demetrius? love for Helena will rekindle. As the audience, we know that the most probable course of action for Demetrius upon hearing such news is to pursue Lysander and Hermia, or to report them to Theseus or Egeus. Clearly, infatuation has clouded Helena?s ability to think clearly, and she sees things in her own idealistic way.
In "A Midsummer Night's Dream," William Shakespeare explains the difficulties of the nature of love. Both false love and true love prevail in the end, leading the reader to come to the conclusion that all types of love can triumph. Hermia and Lysander represent the existence of a "true love", while Helena and Demertrius represent the opposite extreme. Shakespeare presents the idea that love is unpredictable and can cause great confusion. Love is something that cannot be explained, it can only be experienced. Shakespeare challenges us to develop our own idea of what love truly is.
William Shakespeare, a creative literary artist, impacted his audience with the essence of love. Based on his play, A Midsummer Nights Dream, Lysander a main character explicitly states, "The course of love never runs smooth," expressing an opinion easily relatable to the modern generation. The story of an hour, written by Kate Chopin, is another literary work that easily expresses the same theme. With this in mind, both works revolve around the aspect of love and it's challenges that some May or may not overcome. Love is much more than an emotion, it's another world, another life that overcomes oneself into something unknown.
Helena was the younger sister of Hermia. It often bothered her that her sister got all the attention, and she even want it. Helena was madly in love with Demetrius, However Demetrius was arranged to marry Hermia. Helena truly believe she was not good enough, and could not understand why Demetrius did now want
The dramatic irony created many scenes of humor and tension. So Helena was in love with Demetrius. When Helena found out that Hermia who Demetrius was supposed to marry, was planning to run away with Lysander, the love of her life.
Throughout the events which unfold in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare delivers several messages on love. Through this play, one of the significant ideas he suggests is that love is blind, often defying logic and overriding other emotions and priorities. Helena loves Demetrius unconditionally and pursues him despite knowing that he loathes her; conflict arises between Helena and Hermia, childhood best friends, over Demetrius and Lysander; and because she is in love, Queen Titania is able to see beauty and virtue in the ass-headed Nick Bottom.
What wicked and dissembling glass of mine made me compare with Hermia’s sphery eyne?” (Shakespeare2.2.94-105) Therefore shown by the book the only reason that they are to me wed is because the spell that was cast over Demetrious from the flowers nectar. Helena has always liked Demetrious and followed him around and at one point he liked her too but then someone better came along and
The relationship between Demetrius and Hermia is problematic, in that Demetrius is seeking the affections of Hermia, while she is in love with Lysander. However, Hermia’s father approves of Demetrius and tries to force her to marry him, but Hermia refuses because of her love for Lysander (A Midsummer Night’s Dream 1.1.22-82). Lysander points out the flaw in the situation through this comment, “You have her father 's love, Demetrius –/Let me have Hermia 's. Do you marry him,” (A Midsummer Night’s Dream 1.1.93-94). The second flawed relationship is between Lysander and Helena, as a result of an enchantment put on Lysander that made him fall in love with Helena. Helena does not want the affections of Lysander, but rather the love of Demetrius, and believes that Lysander is taunting her. In addition, this relationship creates tensions because Hermia is in love with Lysander (A Midsummer Night’s Dream 2.2.109-140). Both relationships are not desirable due to a lack of mutual admiration and the creation of non-peaceful and unsatisfying
There is an underlying ambiguity in Helena 's character. Spreading the illustration over the four most disputed moments in All's Well, the virginity repartee, the miraculous cure of the King, the accomplishment of conditions and the bed - trick, one can detect the ''different shades'' of in her character - honourable, passionate, discreet, audacious, romantic, rational, tenacious, forgiving ... She can be sampled out to be basically an idiosyncratic person with her good and bad, positioned within the ''clever wench'' tradition and the ''fulfilling of tasks'' folk tales ( W. W. Lawrence ) which necessitates that she should behave with a determination. The whole ambiguity in Helena ensues from unrealistic dramaturgy and realistic conception of women. Throughout the play, one sees Helena jostling ingenuousness with sexuality and at times there seems to be two Helenas, one who is conventionally tame and the other who is actively all out ... a love - sick Juliet that is ready at the end to expose her darling 's ill practices. One could compare Helena with Isabella in Measure for Measure, since the characters are engulfed by different circumstances that demand each of them to act differently. Isabella is a religious figure while Helena is only love-driven.
Presented with many obstacles and complications to overcome, we know that Hermia is the protagonist in the play. She has relations with almost all the characters in the play. The first and most important relationship is her love, Lysander. From the very beginning we see that Hermia loves Lysander with all her heart and soul and he loved her the same. The only tragic flaw in their relationship was when Puck put the magic juice in Lysander's eyes and he fell in love with Helena. Hermia felt sad and rejected when that happened. But when Puck finally realized that he had made a mistake and corrected it, Hermia and Lysander were in their heavenly bliss of love once again.
Hermia and Helena's relationship has changed greatly after the intervention of Puck with the love potion. Once best friends, they have become each others enemies, and all for the love of Lysander and Demetrius.
Hermia was dark haired and smaller than Helena (Hermia’s best friend) which caused her much distress at times when she thought Lysander neglected her for Helena. Hermia began to think that Helena was prettier than her as she was taller and had beautiful hair. However, little did Hermia know, Helena was actually jealous of her and thought she was too perfect,
Demetrius, Helena, Lysander, and Hermia are the for young teens of the story. At the beginning of the play it is Lysander and Helena who are madly in love, and are planning to to escape from Athens to elope. Helena is in love with Demetrius, and Demetrius cared for Helena and liked her a lot but was not in love with her. As soon as Demetrius sees Hermia he immediately stops having any feelings for Helena whatsoever and is deeply in love with Hermia. Demetrius thought that he had fallen in love at first sight, but Helena was determined to show him differently. Demetrius: ³ Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit,/ For I am sick when I do look on thee.² Helena: ³And I am sick when I look not on you.² (Act II, sc. i, lines 218-220) This piece of dialogue shows how much Demetrius is now in love with Hermia from just seeing her, and how disgusted he feels when he looks upon Helena who he used to care about. Helena is simply just expressing how much she is love with Demetrius and how bad she feels that he is treating her in such a manner of hatred.