A Midsummer Night Dream - Essay Example

And while the unnatural attachment of beautiful Queen Titania to monstrous ass-headed Bottom is perhaps the most striking variety of love of all found here, it is the inexplicable, hopeless love of Helena that is the deepest and most intricate emotion on display. That Shakespeare intended to make Helena something greater than just a comedy character is shown even by the name he has chosen for her. "Helena" instantly brings to mind Helen the Fair of Homer. The similarity is emphasized by the Greek setting.

Homer used his Helen as a symbol of love and beauty. In "A Midsummer Night's Dream", Helena/Helen is still beautiful ("Through Athens I am thought as fair as she", I.I. 227), but unhappy in love. This toes the line with the general idea of the strangeness of the love's ways: "And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind. Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste" (I.I. 235-6) The little change of adding a feminine -a inflexion to her name serves the obvious purpose of matching it to the name of her friend and rival, Hermia.

And once again, the resemblance in names is employed to set off their different luck in love. Helena is also the one whose mouth Shakespeare uses to voice hi. What does Helena tell us about herself in this monologue Several things of importance. Firstly, as quoted above, that she is "thought fair". This makes her Fair Helen in the looks but not in feeling, because, secondly, her beauty means nothing to her as her beloved one does not think her beautiful: "But what of that Demetrius thinks not so.

He will not know what all but he do know." (228-9)3After that, she gives us her vision of love: "Things base and vile, holding no quantity, Love can transpose to form and dignity. And therefore is Love said to be a child, Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd" (I.I. 232-3, 238-9). This is the burden of all the play. Helena is well aware that Demetrius is not perfect, but her feelings has made him seem such, and yet she continues her hopeless pursuit. She may be said to have surrendered to Love, to be engrossed by it.

She is not so much in love with Demetrius, but with Love itself, of whom Demetrius happens to be the object. Hence all speculations on "Cupid's blindness". It is very characteristic that Helena is neither jealous of Hermia, nor angry at Demetrius for his betrayal, about which she tells in the next lines of the soliloquy. It is Love that matters, and for its sake she is ready to suffer. This attitude is typical for Shakespeare, for whom Love was a favorite token and who set great store on having the spectators understand the driving motivations beyond the action.

Tony Tanner in his introduction to the Millennium edition of Shakespeare's comedies, vol.1, notes that it is also typical for Shakespeare to have women be the support of love (cxli), when the men may go astray, but women must be true to their feelings. In this respect, Helena is as steady as a rock.4She then