Compare And Contrast Hermia And Lysander - 796 Words

Helena, however, is not worried. â€Å"Your virtue is my privilege† (2.1.220), she counters, believing that just being around Demetrius is enough to protect her. Once again, this underlines the depth of her love for Demetrius. As long as she remains in the forest with him, the importance of maintaining her femininity starts to become something of an afterthought. On the other hand, Hermia remains overly concerned with being proper and chaste. When she and Lysander are trying to find a place to sleep for the night, he asks her to lie down next to her. Hermia instantly insists that they sleep apart: â€Å"But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy / Lie further off in human modesty† (2.2.62-63). Though Lysander explains that he did not mean to suggest†¦show more content†¦At the beginning of the argument, she remains calm even as Hermia is furiously accusing her. She expresses her surprise at Hermia’s aggressive attitude: â€Å"Have you no modesty, no maiden shame, / No touch of bashfulness?† (3.2.286-287). Clearly, Helena is sticking firmly to idea of a woman remaining docile and well-behaved. Her reactions to Hermia’s aggressiveness only serve to highlight this fact further. Her first instinct is to turn to Lysander and Demetrius and beg for them to protect her. She says that they need to keep her safe from Hermia: I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen, Let her not hurt me. I was never cursed. I have no gift at all in shrewishness. I am a right maid for my cowardice. (3.2.299-303) In this passage, Helena is comparing herself to Hermia, saying that she is better since she is acting as helpless and afraid as a woman should be. When Hermia still refuses to back off, she switches her tactics to calmly reasoning with her. She tells Hermia that, with the exception of telling Demetrius about her plan, she has never done anything bad to her. She offers to go back to Athens and leave her alone, calling herself foolish: â€Å"You see how simple and how fond I am† (3.2.318). She is trying to appear weak in order to make Hermia forgive her. In the end, once Lysander and Demetrius have run off and she is left alone with Hermia, she still refuses to act aggressive. When Hermia tells her to stay where she is,Show MoreRelatedWaning Of Shakespeare s A Midsummer Night s Dream1465 Words   |  6 Pagesimpossible by bringing many contradictory elements into his play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a comedy on the verge of tragedy. In this play, many of his characters allude to the moon through the use of repetitive metaphors. Shakespeare specifically compares the moon to time as a means to juxtapose various elements of his play: eagerness and reluctance, chastity and fertility, as well as tragedy and comedy. 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