Character comparison

Lady Macbeth from Macbeth and Helena from A midsummer nights dream

Two of Shakespeares most famous plays Macbeth and A midsummer nights dream
present a series of stories which, through the authors remarkable writing skills in terms of
psychology and character analysis, reveal some of the basic, yet personality forming instincts
and emotions: fear, love, desire and ambition to evolve from ones current human condition.
The main theme of Macbeththe destruction wrought when ambition goes unchecked
by moral constraintsfinds its most powerful expression in the plays two main characters.
Macbeth is a courageous Scottish general who is not naturally inclined to commit evil deeds,
yet he deeply desires power and advancement.
Lady Macbeth, on the other hand, pursues her goals with greater determination, yet
she is less capable of withstanding the repercussions of her immoral acts. One of
Shakespeares most forcefully drawn female characters, she spurs her husband mercilessly to
kill Duncan and urges him to be strong in the murders aftermath, but she is eventually driven
to distraction by the effect of Macbeths repeated bloodshed on her conscience.
The course of true love never did run smooth, comments Lysander, articulating one
of A Midsummer Nights Dreams most important themesthat of the difficulty of love.
Though most of the conflict in the play stems from the troubles of romance, and though the
play involves a number of romantic elements, it is not truly a love story;
Obsessed over Demetrius, Helena's character emphasizes the capriciousness of love
and its excesses. Even though she knows she is making a fool of herself by pursuing
Demetrius, Helena cannot stop the chase. She reminds us that love is blind, declaring that she
is as beautiful as Hermia, so there is no logical explanation for Demetrius' sudden shift in
affection.
Besides emphasizing love's arbitrary nature, Helena also highlights the gender
differences that displease women. Unlike men who can woo whomever they please, women
are not allowed to fight for love; instead, they must passively wait for the man of their dreams
to notice them. In chasing Demetrius through the woods, Helena is breaking the rules of her
sex, becoming the pursuer rather than the pursued.
Both characters show the particular place that women are supposed to hold in society,
respectively the fact that they cannot pursue their dreams and ambitions and, most
importantly, have very little influence over the events that govern their lives.

In Macbeth, Lady Macbeth tries to overcome this by renouncing her feminity and
manipulating skills to achieve her goals, associating masculinity with violence and
bloodshed. After seeing the three witches first prophecy being confirmed (that her husband
becomes Thane of Cawdor), she begins her plan to fulfill the future predictions made by the
witches and convinces her husband to commit murder by challenging his manhood.
"Macbeth. We will proceed no further in this business:
He hath honour'd me of late; and I have bought
Golden opinions from all sorts of people,
Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,
Not cast aside so soon.
Lady Macbeth. Was the hope drunk,
Wherein you dress'd yourself? hath it slept since?
And wakes it now, to look so green and pale
At what it did so freely? From this time,
Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valour,
As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem ? "
In A midsummer nights dream Helena likens herself to Apollo who chased the
unwilling huntress Daphne through the woods. Helena's choice of examples is significant
because it emphasizes the violence men (or gods in this case) have often perpetrated against
women: Apollo wanted not only to capture Daphne, but to rape her. In chasing Demetrius,
Helena claims to have appropriated Apollo's role, yet Demetrius is still the one who threatens
violence when he vows to "do [her] mischief in the wood" if she doesn't stop following him.
Not only must woman patiently wait for her chosen lover to call, but she is also constantly
threatened by male sexual violence if she resists unwanted male attentions.
Helena and Demetrius were previously betrothed. Demetrius is known to not care
about who he is with. He was first engaged to Helena, but was told to marry Hermia. He was
fine with that, but Helena wasn't. She wishes to have his love again. In act I, Scene I,
Lysander says "Demetrius, I'll avouch it to his head, Made love to Nedar's daughter, Helena"
showing us that Demetrius is a fickle lover. When she hears that Lysander and Hermia have
planned to elope, she informs Demetrius in the hope that this will make him love her.
However, her plan didn't go as she intended for it to go... Instead, Demetrius insists on
following Lysander and Hermia, in the hope of winning Hermia's love. Eventually, all four
lovers find themselves in the Athenian forest, where the sleeping Lysander and Demetrius
have a love juice sprinkled into their eyes by an errant fairy called Puck. This causes the pair
to fall in love with the first person they see when they awaken; for both, this is Helena.
Demetrius and Lysander then begin to declare their love for Helena, and argue with
each other over who should claim her affection. Helena, who has been used to being
overlooked by men, believes that the pair is mocking her. Hermia arrives and sees that her

lover, Lysander, loves Helena, however refuses to believe him and storms off. This leads to
an argument between Hermia and Helena, and Helena is upset when she believes Hermia has
betrayed her by joining Demetrius and Lysander. Childhood friendships between women
should be stronger than the fickle love of men. Her comments make us question the position
of all women in the play.
The two analyzed characters are proof of Shakespeares mastery at creating powerful
images that transcend the world of the play to become part of humanitys culture. Lady
Macbeth is the symbol of the ambitious woman struggling in a world with rules created by
men, while Helena is part of a love triangle in a chasing of an unfulfilled love. Regardless of
the denouement concerning their faiths in the development of the plays, both characters have
gone beyond the world of fiction and achieved a status in the worlds consciousness.
Works cited:
- Balan, Rada si altii. Pathway to English. English News and Views, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1998, pp. 189.
- Blumfeld, Odette. Highlights of British and American Drama, MEC, 2006.
- Pfister, Manfred. The Theory and Analysis of Drama, Cambridge:Cambridge University
Press, 1988, pp.160-295
- Ubersfeld, Anne. Termenii cheie ai analizei teatrului, Iai: Institutul European, 1999,
pp.119-305.
http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/literature/a-midsummer-nights-dream/characteranalysis/helena.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helena_(A_Midsummer_Night's_Dream)
http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/msnd/canalysis.html
http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/macbeth/canalysis.html