Analysis

Helena & Viola

Description of both characters

As we previously said, we are going to find similarities in these two characters, nevertheless, they are almost the complete opposite. My interest in this work will not only be to see the connection between both characters’ personality, but also the things that they come across and the situations that are repeated in both plays.

First of all, I would like to start giving a brief description of the characters in order to meet them:

Viola is a young woman from the high class. She lives with her twin brother, Sebastian, but they were separated when the ship they where wrecked in a storm. Viola thought that his twin was dead and she decided to do her own live. She is a strong character and she is a very determined woman. She did not hesitate in her decision to transform into a man, called Cesario in order to survive in Illyria. Despite being very self-confident and appearing to be completely rational in her decisions, she falls in love with Orsino, Illyria’s duke, nevertheless her love cannot be revealed until the end. She is patient, but that patience causes pain.

Helena is a young woman as well. She is completely lovesick with Demetrious, who refuses her. She spends the days trying to get his love. She is far from being self-confident and is always comparing herself to Hermia, her friend, and showing off her complexes. She is passionate and she is not afraid of crying out her love towards Demetrius and his rejection towards her. This character is always low self-esteem and she shows it when she thinks that Lysander is mocking at her. ‘HELENA Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born? When at your hands did I deserve this scorn? Is't not enough, is't not enough, young man, That I did never, no, nor never can, Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius' eye, But you must flout my insufficiency?’[1] She could never come to her mind that two men could love and fight to get her love.

As we see, both women are different, nevertheless, both fall in love and in order to achieve their aim they will come across difficulties and will suffer of love. About love is what we are going to talk next.

Love as a cause of suffering

‘There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.’[2] This quotation can be applied for many characters in Shakespeare’s plays, but in fact, it is something that real people desire as well, nevertheless, to achieve it is not as simple as it sounds. Far from that, love causes pain but it is worthy if at the end all lovers achieve their aims and get the price. Shakespeare knew perfectly what that mean and he reflected that in this quotation: ‘They do not love that do not show their love. The course of true love never did run smooth. Love is a familiar. Love is a devil. There is no evil angel but Love.’[3]

Our two female characters also suffer for love but in different ways. Viola seems more a serene person. She does not do anything without premeditation and rationality, that it is why I say her love is silent. Viola is Cesario, so she is a man in front of everyone. Viola is in love with Orsino, her master, who believes her to be a man and not a lady. The situation gets even worst when Cesario (Viola) is send by Orsino to predicate his love to Olivia’s house, the woman Orsino is completely lovesick. ‘Orsino: If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die’[4] and Olivia rejects Orsino’s love because she is mad about Cesario. ‘Olivia: I cannot love him: let him send no more; Unless, perchance, you come to me again, To tell me how he takes it. Fare you well:I thank you for your pains: spend this for me.’[5]

Viola suffers a difficult situation because she is not able to express her feelings directly to Orsino, but indirectly. When she speaks to him she tells about the love of other person but she is reflecting hers: ‘VIOLA; A blank, my lord. She never told her love, But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought,
And with a green and yellow melancholy She sat like patience on a monument, Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed? We men may say more, swear more: but indeed
Our shows are more than will; for still we prove Much in our vows, but little in our love.’[6]

Helena also suffers a difficult situation because she has to face Demetrius’ rejection almost the whole play. ‘DEMETRIUS I love thee not, therefore pursue me not. Where is Lysander and fair Hermia?’[7], nevertheless she does not care and she is always expressing her feelings aloud. Helena is so lovesick that she is blind. ‘HELENA The more you beat me, I will fawn on you: Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me, Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave, Unworthy as I am, to follow you. What worser place can I beg in your love,-- And yet a place of high respect with me,--Than to be used as you use your dog ’.[8] Here we see Helena how she bows down to Demetrius. She is so obsessed with him that she enjoys all the moments that she can be by his side, although he is terrible tough with her most of the time. She will die for him and that is why she confesses the plan that Hermia and Lysander was dealing with. ‘HELENA I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight: Then to the wood will he to-morrow 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.’[9] She is squeezing all the chances she can come across in order to obtain Demetrius’ love again. She does not realize the causes that her act can produce due to she is trying to achieve her aim, Demetrius’ love.

Which love is better and which love is worse? Both are terrible. The silent love is slow and hurts little by little, but the passionate love of Helena is rapid and painful, but at least she can express her love and feel relieved. There is a Spanish proverb that says ‘Where there is love, there is pain’[10] and in Shakespeare that it is so. He is very contemporaneous because the same things that happen today will happen in the future and he already knew it. That opinion is also supported by many people. I have found an interview by Claire Daniel to Tony Howard[11]. He claimed that Shakespeare could not be sidelined by the modern age like Marlowe and Jonson because Shakespeare’s part of the way we think, and the way we talk, and we can’t get away from Shakespeare.

In both plays we find a love triangle were there is not symmetrical at first and later becomes a perfect quartet composed by two couples. In A Midsummer night’s dream Hermia loves Lysander, and vice versa, but the problem is that Helena loves Demetrius, but he rejects her love because he desires Hermia. Shakespeare can not let this situation open, so he closes it with a happy end as usual in a comedy. Thanks for a magic element he completes the couples successfully.

In Twelfth night the love triangle is a bit more difficult. Orsino loves Olivia, but she loves Viola (Cesario) and Viola loves Orsino. What Shakespeare does to complete successfully this mess is the apparition of Viola’s brother, Sebastian, so the perfect love quartet appears again at the end of the play. Orsino can be connected to Helena because both characters are being rejected during all the play. ‘ORSINO: Once more, Cesario, Get thee to yond same sovereign cruelty: Tell her, my love, more noble than the world, Prizes not quantity of dirty lands; The parts that fortune hath bestow'd upon her, Tell her, I hold as giddily as fortune; But 'tis that miracle and queen of gems That nature pranks her in attracts my soul. VIOLA But if she cannot love you, sir? DUKE ORSINO I cannot be so answer'd.’[12]

In both plays we reach at the end to the marvelous Slumberland[13], the perfection and the symmetry but first we have a conflict. In A Midsummer night’s dream the problems appear when Puck pours the flower of love-in-idleness in Lysander’s eyes instead in Demetrio’s and he causes a completely chaos between the four lovers. At the end the same element that had caused the struggle gave the key to solve it and the cycle ends.

In Twelfth night the conflict begins with the change of sex or transformation by Viola into Cesario. Basically are the clothes what design her that she is a man and the disappearance of these elements and the apparition of Sebastian is what really solve the problem. Twelfth night is one of the plays referred to as Shakespeare’s ‘transvestite comedies’.

Differences

Despite finding some similarities between these to female characters, we will also find some differences. Concerning to the previous paragraph, clothes makes Viola to be a man, nevertheless, when Orsino discovers that she is a woman he automatically falls in love with her. The reason is because he likes Cesario personality and physical appearance. ‘ORSINO: She will attend it better in thy youth, Than in a nuncio's of more grave aspect.’[14], ‘ORSINO…Cesario, come; For so you shall be, while you are a man; But when in other habits you are seen, Orsino's mistress and his fancy's queen.’[15] Orsino continues to address to Viola by her male name. Orsino’s love to Viola seems to be a prolongation of his previous love to Cesario. So, we find some kind of homosexual connotations, but not only in the relationship of Orsino and Viola, but also in Olivia and Viola relationship because Olivia is in love with a woman.

On the other hand, in A Midsummer night’s dream we do not find any homosexual relationship between the main characters, the problem between the couples is completely heterosexual.

We also find a difference in the way the characters are structured. In A Midsummer night’s dream the characters are contrasted most of the times, for instance Hermia and Helena. They are always comparing themselves. ‘HELENA O that my prayers could such affection move! HERMIA The more I hate, the more he follows me. HELENA The more I love, the more he hateth me. HERMIA His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine. HELENA None, but your beauty: would that fault were mine!’[16]

On the other hand, in Twelfth night we find that some characters are not contrasted but doubled, for instance the twins. ‘DUKE ORSINO One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons, A natural perspective, that is and is not!’ [17]

Probably without the magic love-in-idleness flower which once hit with one Cupid’s arrows would not be possible to change Demetrio’s mind in loving Helena. Shakespeare plays in this play with the subconscious. The characters of the play do not know if they are dreaming or not, that ambiguity makes possible a magical solution for the love conflict. So, this play deals with magic and subconscious, nevertheless Twelfth Night has not any magic around. Everything is very real in the sense that we will not find fairies and spells. The solving of this love problem has nothing to do with magic, but with genre.

Back

Back to main page

Academic year 2007/2008
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Laura Calabuig Sais
casais@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press

[1] http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/mirror/classics.mit.edu/Shakespeare/midsummer/midsummer.2.2.html

[2] Happiness quotes by George Sand. http://www.wisdomquotes.com/cat_happiness.html

[13] Forés, Vicente, Curso Monográfico Literatura Inglesa (Shakespeare in Performance), 2007-2008.