Hi again everyone...
Thank you to the following people and groups, for handing in the Powerpoint presentations for Acts 4 and 5!
They are:
- Jia Jing
- The Bumblebees
- Yanyan, Sheryl and Rachael from 3BN andMaryann, Charles and XueYi from 3GR
- Jacqueline Sim
- Shubin (Group E)
What about the rest of you? Where are your presentations?!
Submission still pending. Please submit individually or as a group. Thank you!
For this week:
Please use the comments feature to discuss the following.
1. In modern times, how would Helena's speech in Act 1 Scene 1, lines 181-192, be perceived? What are some of the stereotypes inherent in her speech here?
2. What prejudices and values of that time (as evidenced in Helena's speech) are still relevant today?
Please feel free to contribute your ideas even if it seems to run contrary to "popular" (read: other people's) opinion. Your responses will be evaluated for relevance to topic, originality of thought and ideas and quality of contribution.
Please also feel free to agree or disagree with what your friends have commented, but remember to elaborate and make each argument your own.
The breakdown of marks for this online assignment are as follows:
10 marks in total for a coherent and logical comment / contribution /discussion.
1 bonus mark for the first person to contribute.
1 bonus mark for those who contribute fresh ideas to the discussion
As before, please contribute and discuss the above questions by MONDAY, 9 JUNE .
A new assignment for Week 3 will be uploaded next week.
Have a great time working on this assignment, everyone! :)
12 comments:
1. Helena’s speech would probably be perceived as her being overly jealous of Hermia’s looks. Besides that, she is also jealous of how Hermia could possess Demetrius’ love. Based on Helena’s speech, her tone seems to suggest how much she wanted Demetrius’ love and how jealous she is of Hermia who possessed fine physical qualities which Helena did not have. In her speech, it is stated that sickness is contagious. This is one stereotype of Helena as she believes that all sickness have to be contagious. She also stated that Hermia used tricks to make Demetrius fall in love with her, which is another stereotype Helena had for people in her time to use black magic to gain what they wanted.
2. Prejudices of that time include the views of marriage. During the Shakespearean time, marriage is being decided by the child’s parents, not the child, but them. It seems that the child had no right at all to choose his/her love, which is still quite relevant today. Parents are still involved in the child’s marriage, where they would review the child’s choice of companion, deciding whether the person suits their child based on his/her background. One example would be how parents would disagree against their child from marrying a poor person who works in a coffee shop. This is attributed to the fact that parents chose the person to be married to their child during the Shakespearean time. The reason to marry for both times will be based on the person’s good qualities, how good he/she is suited for the child.
Love, as can be seen from Helena’s speech, is based on physical looks alone, depicting the theme of young love and love’s innocence. From the text, Helena is seen to be craving for Hermia’s “eyes”, “tongue” as in voice and even wanted Hermia to teach her the way she looked in order to get Demetrius’ attention and love. Helena thinks that by merely possessing Hermia’s physical qualities, she can also possess Demetrius’ love. This shows how love is seen from the mind, not the heart.
Bravo Terrance for being the first to post! :) 1 bonus point!
1. In modern times, people will view Helena’s speech as that Demetrius likes Hermia because she is beautiful and not because he really likes her. Helena says that Hermia’s “eyes are lodestars”, her “tongue’s sweet air more tuneable than lark to shepherd’s ear” and “tongue’s sweet melody” resulting in Helena thinking that she is able to “sway the motion of Demetrius’ heart”. From here we can see that Helena seems to say that Demetrius is not really true to Hermia and that he only likes her because Hermia is beautiful.
It can also be thought of that Helena is jealous and envious of Hermia’s beauty. Helena says “Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go. My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye, My tongue should catch your tongue’s sweet melody” and “O, teach me how you look and with what art”. This implies that Helena feels that Hermia possess the best qualities so Demetrius falls in love with her. It also shows that Helena longs to have those qualities she thinks Hermia possess so as to win Demetrius’ heart. She is jealous of Hermia’s good qualities and wishes to have them.
The stereotype in her speech is that good looks are contagious. Helena says “Sickness is catching. O, were favour so”. Helena feels that sickness can be spread to others and so are good looks able to grasp the attention of people.
2) The prejudices that still remain today is that men would want to marry beautiful and elegant women. In Helena’s speech, she seems to mean that because Hermia is beautiful and possess many good qualities, hence Demetrius falls in love with her and not because he really likes her. For example, a parent would not wish for their child to marry someone who is uncouth or uncultured. They would prefer their child to marry someone who is cultured and refined so that they would not disgrace the family.
The other view is that beautiful or attractive people can grasp people’s attention more easily. In Helena’s speech, she has listed out all the fine qualities Hermia possess which makes her very beautiful. From there, she links it by saying that the reason why Demetrius is attracted to Hermia is because she is beautiful. For example, one would be more attracted to a beautiful person than a person with very normal looks. They would most probably turn away to those who are obese or do not have a pretty face.
1. Helena's speech in Act 1 Scene 1 would be perceived as her being desperate for Demetrius's love and that she would do anything to obtain Hermia's beauty. Helena is admiring Hermia's beauty to a large extent and that she is beginning to be overly jealous of Hermia's looks and her speech is filled with a hostile tone when she talks to Hermia.The passage says "call you me fair? that 'fair' again unsay." She is overly in love with Demetrius and that this love has caused her to change 360 degrees. Helena is overly exaggerating Hermia's beauty and that this cause to readers to have a bad impression that Demetrius likes outer beauty instead of inner beauty. in reality, inner beauty is the most important of a person. By complimenting Hermia, she is actually degrading herself and that she is willing to do anything for Demetrius even giving up her own looks. this way, she would lose the originality of herself. the passage says "the rest I'd give to be you translated". One of the sterotypes in her speech is that she feels that all sickness is contagious. She wishes that beauty is contagious too, thus being able to obtain Hermia's good looks. Another sterotype in her speech is that she deem everything that Hermia accomplished with underhanded means. it is common for people of the ancient times to perform underhanded means just to get the object which they desire.
2. the prejudice that still remains today is that it is only external beauty that will attract a man. in the modern society, a bulk of the men would be infatutaed with women that have a good figure and a pretty face. this shows that men do not regard a woman's inner beauty as a factor of choice. Another prejudice that is present today is that women feel that beauty is all about luck. A beautiful person must have done something good in order to obtain this reward while an ugly person must have done numerous evil deeds to take away a precious gift that is rightfully bestowed to every woman. another value that is still relevant today is the power of love. a woman is willing to give up anything just to be with the person of their dream even at the expense of their own life and beauty. a person is willing to go through plastic sugery just to be with the person of their desire. this will cause them to lose their originality.
1) I feel that her speech would be portrayed, in modern times, that people look for appearances instead of qualities before loving the other person. The evidence is that Helena keeps saying about Hermia having eyes like “lodestars”, speech like “sweet air” and so on. In this speech, we can actually tell that she is pointing out all of Hermia’s physical qualities, and not her true qualities. This shows that Demetrius loved Hermia because of her appearance and nothing else. Thus, in modern times, people would think that Demetrius loved Hermia just because of appearances.
However, what I feel is that in modern times, love can change very easily. From her speech, we can tell that she loves Demetrius, and her tone in saying the speech is rather lovelorn. This is because she, while mentioning all of Hermia’s good qualities, also mentions herself wanting to have these qualities. Thus, we can tell that Demetrius used to love Helena, and now has turned towards Hermia. For what reason and when we do not know, but in modern times, this will be perceived as love being able to change easily. We can even say that Demetrius is a two-timer in love (as what most people would say)!
One of the stereotypes that are inherent in her speech is when she overuses the word “fair” to describe Hermia, which is clearly shown in the beginning of her speech. “Call me you fair? That ‘fair’ again unsay./ Demetrius loves your fair. O happy fair!” Lines 181 ~ 182. Fair means beautiful, or as a noun, beauty. However, beauty is said to be in the eyes of the beholder, and thus, many people would have different perspective of beauty. Thus, Helena is stereotyping “fair” as a person that has the appearance of Hermia (since she keeps saying later on that she wants her appearance in order to attract Demetrius), who we later realise, is rather short, dark-skinned and dark-haired.
“Sickness is catching.”? This is a point in which I agree with both Shubin and Terrance. According to Helena, illnesses are generally contagious and are very easy to catch. True, especially in Shakespeare’s time, where medical treatment was not so well off. However, not all illnesses are easy to catch, and even so, not all of them are contagious. Thus, by comparing good looks with illnesses, she is actually stereotyping, as not all illnesses catch, depending on your physical fitness and where you have gone to, which is vital in those periods. If you went to a marsh unprotected, chances are you will be infected by malaria. But in the city? Not so likely. Thus, it is rather like saying that all illnesses are contagious when comparing them with good looks, and sometimes good looks alone may not attract others!
2) Men’s words over women’s. This can be seen by the fact that Helena still continues to love Demetrius, but has no power to change his mind to make him love her. This shows that as a woman, she cannot force Demetrius, a man, to change his mind, while Demetrius, as a man, has the power of women and can change as and when he likes. In fact, he has the power to control Helena, as shown later in the play, when Helena continues to follow Demetrius through the woods in such for the other two lovers, he tries to dissuade her from following him. Thus, this shows that a man’s word is generally more powerful than the word of a woman. This is still relevant today, where men can get the generally higher positions while women, however hard they try, still cannot reach the top positions.
Also, I agree with Shubin that most people would like to marry people with more attractive appearances, even in modern times. In the play, Helena is seen as complaining over why Hermia is far more beautiful than her, and that she wishes to have her appearance so as to attract Demetrius to make him love her. This is true in modern times. What modern people think nowadays is that if a person is attractive, he or she must, or seemingly, is well brought up and well, rich. Thus, most people would not like to marry someone that is physically ugly as they would think that their nature would be the same too, impulsive, evil-natured as a whole. Thus, this is the other prejudice that this speech brings.
adeline
1) in modern times, Helena's speech would be seen as she being jealous of Hermia. Even though Helena is prettier than Hermia, Demetrius likes Hermia instead, thus she deems her good looks as of no use and starts degrading herself. This can be seen from line 190 "were the world mine, Demetrius being bated" Helena is desperate for Demetrius'love and this can be seen from her telling Hermia that she is willing to give up everything for Hermia to teach her how to get Demetrius to like her. Just because Demetrius likes Hermia, Helena thinks that Hermia is a lot better than her and she sort of feels inferior towards Hermia. She has lost confidence in herself. It seems that she has suppressed her sadness and anger of seeing the guy she loved most liking her best friend instead of her for quite some time and thus in this speech, Helena's emotions sort of exploded. She uses a sarcastic tone when 'complimenting' Hermia and this shows that she don't actually mean what she says and is jealous of Hermia. The sterotype that Helena thinks is that good looks is as contagious as diseases. tHis can be seen from line 186 "Sickness is catching. O, were favour so" Helena thinks that if she is with Hermia, she will be affected by Hermia's looks and Demetrius would then like her too.
2)It is thought that men would only love beautiful girls. Even though Helena is prettier than Hermia, Helena thinks that Hermia is prettier than her as Demetrius likes Hermia instead of her. Helena has this thinking in her head that men only likes beautiful girls and just because Demetrius chose Hermia, she sees herself as worthless. Even in the world now, most people would also go for looks. Another similarity is that people dare to pursue their love. In the speech, it is known that Hermia is willing to elope with Lysander despite knowing that this will tarnish her reputation and would anger her father. She dares to pursue her love despite all the obstacles and this is similar to the people today. Even if parents were to object to a marriage, most people would stand up to protect their love as they feel that they have the right to do so.
1) Helena's speech hints that she is in awe of Hermia and jealous of the attention she is receiving.
She gives the impression that she is angry and insulted when Hermia calls her "fair Helena!" even though it is a sincere compliment, Helena chooses to take it as sarcasm. This shows that even though she might be best of friends with Hermia, she is nonetheless jealous and more than a little infuriated with her.
The stereotype of this speech is that Helena presumes that sickness is contagious. She thinks that Demetrius love Hermia for her beauty, thus she begs Hermia to "teach me how you look and with what art You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart." This shows that she is desoerate and does not understand that love cannot be forced.
Helena's speech betrays that she has no self-confidence as she assumes that she is ugly just because Demetrius dislikes her. She live for the sake of Demetrius and is forever at his disposal, she assumes that whatever Demetrius love is beauty is perfect such as Hermia whereas whatever Demetrius spurn is bad and crude such as how she look upon herself.
2) Prejudices of time is that many assmues that to be loved and admired, you must be fair. In Helena's point of view, Hermia is fair and therefore hotly pursued by both Lysander and Demetrius. This coincides with the ideals of the modern world, men usually pursue beautiful ladies. However, in the modern world this ideal does not assert itself so strongly as many people now look at one's character and personality.
Esther3BN
1.In modern times, it would be perceived that Helena thought that physical qualities were the key factor for one to fall in love. Helena is seen praising Hermia’s beautiful features, saying that ‘your eyes are lodestars and your tongue’s sweet air more tunable than lark to shepherd’s ear.’ ‘My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye..melody’ She feels that it is Hermia’s beautiful features that drew Demetrius away from Helena’s side. If Helena is able to exchange her looks for Hermia’s good features, she will be able to charm Demetrius and have him back to her side as she says ‘sickness is catching. O’ were favour so, yours would I catch.’
Helena attributes Hermia’s good looks as the reason why Demetrius has fallen for her. Demetrius was probably attracted to Hermia when she saw how beautiful she was, abandoning Helena. There is a stereotype here, which is that a person’s physical qualities is a key factor that you would consider before falling in love with that person. Usually, people look at one’s physical appearances first before attempting to make friends with that person.
2.In Hermia’s time, the choice of your marriage partner is decided by your parents and the children have no say in who they are going to marry. The parents will consider the person‘s background, character and even physical appearances before deciding to marry their child off. Today, parents also have a say in their children’s marriage. Although they can’t pick a marriage partner for their child, the still have the authority to permit or object to their child’s choice.
The people now and then are willing to make sacrifices to pursue their loved ones, no matter what consequences they will face afterwards. Take Hermia for example, she is willing to disobey her father in order to be with Lysander, abandoning her father to elope with Lysander. However, the people today will openly object if they are forced to marry someone they do not love, and not resort to eloping.
1)If taking my views on modern times, I would think that Helena’s speech is rather foolish and a little exaggerated. An evidence of stereotyping would be that guys will only love women who are pretty, “your eyes are lodestars …O, teach me how you look and with what art you sway the motion of Demetrius’ heart”. Another evidence of stereotyping would be that ladies or women should be gentle and have a sweet voice, “…, and your tongue’s sweet air more tuneable than lark to a shepherd’s ear…My ear should catch your voice…My tongue should catch your tongue’s sweet melody”.
2)Maybe the part where guys only go for pretty girls. Although only most guys do that, it still applies in today’s society. Not only guys go for looks, many girls do the same as well. Another would be that women or girls should act like one – gentle and sweet. The traditional way of thinking is that if you are a woman, you should act like or you would be left on the shelf. This brings out the old prejudice that only woman who are pretty and gentle will get married.
Hoe Lin Bing
3 BN
Qn.1
In modern times, Helena's speech in Act 1 Scene 1, lines 181-192, will be perceived as extreme jealously, immaturity at matters of heart and pure foolishness. As for the elaboration on extreme jealously, I think that comments in front of me had done quite well, so I shall only elaborate on my points of immaturity at matters of hearts and pure foolishness.
In Helena’s views, she thinks that her personality is not enough to make Demetrius like her. Not only this, she actually thinks that only good looks can move the heart of Demetrius and she even wanted to go to the extent of possessing Hermia’s looks. This is however not true.
In modern times, love is not totally only about attraction to good looks, but instead, to the other person’s qualities and the willingness to stay with the other person for life. One of the reasons Helena loves Demetrius is that she admires his qualities. This is the logic reasoning side of Helena. But instead of winning over Demetrius by her own personality, she thinks that looks are more important and expressed her desire for the good looks of Hermia. This, in fact, showed her immaturity as instead of wanting to Demetrius to love her as he admires her; she wanted Demetrius to be attracted to her “good looks”. This is actually quite incomprehensible and such thinking will be looked down upon in modern society.
Love is not all about looks, it is about personality compatibility. If a man has a nasty attitude, who would want to be with him for life? Demetrius is very nasty towards Helena and this is shown when Demetrius tried to get Helena to stop going after him by saying “I love thee not so pursue me not.”, “Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit; for I am sick when I look down on thee.” And “I shall do thee mischief.” (Act2 Scene1 188-237) After being mistreated and put down by Demetrius, she still loves and wanted to be loved by Demetrius. In modern times, Helena’s speech just reveals her stubbornness and foolishness. Demetrius has express disregard for her and with reasoning, she should know that Demetrius did not love her, yet she persist in her “wooing”.
One example of stereotypes in her speech is that only good looks can sway the heart of man. This is not totally false, neither totally true. Not all men are tempted by good looks, although some prefer to go after them. The fact that there are still men who goes after good personalities make her speech a stereotype of men.
Qn.2
The prejudice that remains till today is that good looking people tend to get better treatment compared to those with a not so outstanding look. People favors good looking person over someone who got an ugly look. The fist impression people get when the look at someone good looking is that they are well-mannered and cultured. But stumbling upon who does not look as good, they tend to get the impression that the ugly person must have a nasty attitude or might even be violent. This impression causes people to turned down by not so good looking people and led to mistreat and bullying in some cases.
One of the value that remains till today is that beauty still remains a priority when searching for love. This applies to both sides of the gender. Everyone wants her husband/ wife to have good looks and figure. It will be easier to feel attracted to the external beauty due to the wild side in every one of us. But there are still some who managed to see inner beauty beneath the looks. But till today, people who are not so good looking still face challenges in finding one who loves him/her truly.
Yi Long 3BN
1) What Helena said would obviously be seen as jealousy. She uses many exaggerated expressions, descriptions to describe Hermia to the extent that it appears that Hermia is a lot more beautiful when compared to her. She described Hermia’s facial looks “eyes are lodestars”, “tongue’s sweet air”, and even said that Hermia’s voice is “more tuneable than lark to shepherd’s ear” to make it seem that Hermia is really very beautiful that not only her looks but even her voice is attractive. This makes Demetrius seem like a person who goes for appearance instead of true love.
In modern times, a girl would not stick to a boy shamelessly like Helena as women in modern times are much stronger than before, they did not have to depend on a man for her live as they are much more independent. Hence Helena would be seen as a rather foolish person to give up that much just for a guy. The way she praises Hermia actually shows how ugly she think she is such that she may actually be humiliating herself.
In modern times a girl would probably have a fair competition with her rival, even weaker ones would just give up but going down to degrading oneself like Helena for a man would be foolish. From the story we know that Helena and Hermia were very good childhood friends and now because of one man they destroyed their years of friendship.
One of the stereotypes is that she used the descriptions to say how beautiful Hermia is but in actual fact it may not be that case as love is not entirely dependant on looks, appearance, this is just what she thinks but it may not be what Demetrius thinks. Helena makes Demetrius sound like a superficial person who goes only for looks but maybe there may be love within Demetrius only that Helena does not know hence she is stereotyping. Another is that Helena mentions “sickness is catching” to suggest that she wishes to have Hermia’s good looks and once again, she stereotypes. Not all illnesses are contagious that is one and also good looks and illness cannot be linked together as they are totally different topics.
2) The prejudice remaining today is that man only like beautiful women, men are only attracted to beautiful women, beautiful women have an advantage over the others. Helena mentions descriptions of Hermia like “eyes are lodestars”, “tongue’s sweet air” to make Hermia sound very pretty and next she wishes to have her beauty, “O, were favour so, Yours would I catch, fair Hermia” , to get Demetrius’ love. This suggests that she thinks that if she is pretty, Demetrius will like her, which is still true today.
wuyi
3md
1.Helena's speech shows that she is envious of Hermia. I don't think she's jealous of her looks. But rather, it's Demetrius' attention and affection towards Hermia that she longed for.It's that feeling which makes her think that it's Hermia's beauty that Demetrius is attracted to. She obviously thinks that she herself is also very pretty.(in fact, she is!)Helena does not understand why D. is so attracted to Hermia.So she assumed it was Hermia's looks he is after. I mean, previously,Helena was courted after by D.and the sudden change of heart makes it difficult for her to accept. Hence, she blamed it on herself not looking as good as Hermia.
That is like what normally people do when they got dumped, like, without any good reason or just some lame excuse.This is just so typical,don't you agree? People will always try to make out any reason and excuse they can find. Just to make themselves feel better. Because, Hermia is really actually short and dark. But Helena is tall, elegant and fair.
Contradicting.It's like trying to figure things out in a smoky surrounding. You are not sure what you are looking out at really really 100percent true or not.Stereotypes.
2.People always think pretty people always managed to snitch the good-looking ones.(cross fingers)
"Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,
The rest I'd give to be to you translated." This is likened to the present fad of going for plastic surgery. Helena would give anything to be like Hermia,just to have D.'s heart.Now, in present society, millions of people would willingly give anything, and i mean ANYTHING to go under the knife.To be REBORN.(only physically, though.They are still grossed out on the inside!sry, im digressing!)
Coming back to the point, it is that spirit, that desire to be able to be like someone, then he/she can be in the limelight.To be in favour. It's like the same case with Helena.
"Sickness is catching; O, were favor so,
Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go"
So it's like this "i-want-to-be-botox-ed"(i meant plastic surgery) fever like a disease now. It's infectious.
P.S.I bet if there's plastic surgey Helena would be first in the waiting list!(just personal opinion!)
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