Helena: The Lover Who Cannot Stop Chasing the Wrong Man

Helena loves Demetrius. He does not love her, prefers Hermia, and has told her directly. Her response in Act 1, Scene 1 is to follow him into the forest at night, having told him exactly where Hermia and Lysander are going. She knows it will not win him. She does it because she cannot stop herself.

Her speech in Act 1, Scene 1, 'Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, / And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind,' is one of the play's sharpest observations. She understands exactly how love works and is still helpless within it.

When both men suddenly pursue her in Act 3, she assumes it is mockery and gets furious. Her conviction that she is not worth loving makes their enchanted declarations feel like cruelty, not desire. She gets Demetrius in the end, but on terms that include the fact that he is still technically under a spell that Oberon never removed.