D.+Effective+Writing+Rating+3

Katie Flanders September 28, 2011 Helena’s Love and Pain

Parts of life can definitely become overbearing and make us obsessive if we let it get too far. In this speech by Helena, she becomes obsessed with Demetrius and tries to figure out why everything she had wanted is not the way she wants it to be. Different ways of describing her problems tell us how she feels during the scene. Helena’s attitude towards love is portrayed when Shakespeare uses descriptive examples and overall tone of voice to display her pathetic and love-struck feelings.

In this speech, Cupid is alluded to, creating a better understanding of how Helena feels. She is hopelessly waiting for her love to love her back, but she states, “And therefore is love said to be a child, Because in choice he is oft beguiled...” relating back to the story of Cupid. Cupid was the God of love but he was seen as a child, and when she alludes to this myth, she is saying how Cupid has been childish to make her love Demetrius, only succeeding in making her mad for him. She also thinks Cupid has led Demetrius away from her on purpose, stating, “Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind; and therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind.” Cupid has led Demetrius away from her by allowing him to focus on the outside beauty of Hermia instead of the inside. Helena accuses Cupid of using all his love powers against her just because Demetrius doesn’t seem to love her.

She also has some interesting sentences that seem to pop out at you because their effect is so great. She uses rhetorical questions, such as, “But what of that?” in order to emphasize her point. She gives these questions to make the reader realize that she is incredibly frustrated and flustered about the situation. She also uses words like “hail’d” and “showers” to describe the promises Demetrius had made to her that were not kept. These kinds of words are used to describe the weather on a rainy, cold kind of day, not usually to describe oaths that were given to someone. She has a way of describing his promises that just make him seem like a disgusting, malevolent person, only wanting the worst for poor, innocent Helena.

She uses a kind of saddened tone to depict how she is feeling. It makes her seem as if she is sorry for herself. She wants us to feel bad for her because Demetrius has been doing all these “evil” things to her, when really she is the only one who should be upset. She feels so much grief that she must share it with the world. Her jealously for Hermia strengthens throughout the speech by describing herself as a lonely, pathetic character and portraying Hermia as “fair,” or beautiful. Shakespeare wants us to feel bad for Helena so the passion Helena shows will seem stronger.

Shakespeare uses all these effects in order to show Helena’s ultimate sadness that comes with her love for Demetrius. Through her descriptions, the reader is able to get an image of how she feels through many different examples.

Process Paragraph: This essay took me about 90 minutes which is probably about a half an hour shorter than last time. It went alright, at times I kind of felt myself rambling on and not being able to figure out what exactly I wanted to say because I didn’t have enough time to structure it more clearly. I think my thesis is better in this essay but the way I describe my points is less clear and harder to understand because I had trouble trying to figure out what I was trying to say. Some advice for myself for next time might be to really think it through as I write instead of jumbling everything I’m trying to say into my head, and then start writing. To support my process, I think we should just work on how to get going on these essays and how to think and write quickly so everything we need to say can get into the essays.