Helena Cohen: Character research

Character Research: Helena Cohen

Juliet: Romeo + Juliet: 

Having not quite reached her fourteenth birthday, Juliet is of an age that stands on the border between immaturity and maturity. At the beginning however she seems merely an obedient, sheltered, naïve child. Though many girls her age—including her mother—get married, Juliet has not given the subject any thought. When Lady Capulet mentions Paris’s interest in marrying Juliet, Juliet dutifully responds that she will try to see if she can love him.

Juliet gives glimpses of her determination, strength, and sober-mindedness, in her earliest scenes, and offers a preview of the woman she will become during the four-day span of Romeo and Juliet. In addition, even in Juliet’s dutiful acquiescence to try to love Paris, there is some seed of steely determination. Juliet promises to consider Paris as a possible husband to the precise degree her mother desires.

Juliet’s first meeting with Romeo propels her full-force toward adulthood. Though profoundly in love with him, Juliet is able to see and criticize Romeo’s rash decisions and his tendency to romanticize things. After Romeo kills Tybalt and is banished, Juliet does not follow him blindly. She makes a logical and heartfelt decision that her loyalty and love for Romeo must be her guiding priorities. Essentially, Juliet cuts herself loose from her prior social moorings—her nurse, her parents, and her social position in Verona—in order to try to reunite with Romeo. When she wakes in the tomb to find Romeo dead, she does not kill herself out of feminine weakness, but rather out of an intensity of love, just as Romeo did. Juliet’s suicide actually requires more nerve than Romeo’s: while he swallows poison, she stabs herself through the heart with a dagger.

Juliet’s development from a wide-eyed girl into a self-assured, loyal, and capable woman is one of Shakespeare’s early triumphs of characterization. It also marks one of his most confident and rounded treatments of a female character.

This is very similar to Helena because she too is sheltered and naive at the beginning of the radio play like Juliet however when Helena meets Billy she has a sense of adventure and hope and seems a lot more mature compared to her at the beginning of the play which is also used in Romeo + Juliet. Also, Juliet will do anything for Romeo and she has this idea of their perfect world together even though it is never possible. This is the same as Helena and Billy's relationship.

Character research: Helena Cohen

Alice: Alice In Wonderland: Alice, an unpretentious and individual 19-year-old, is betrothed to a dunce of an English nobleman. At her engagement party, she escapes the crowd to consider whether to go through with the marriage and falls down a hole in the garden after spotting an unusual rabbit. Arriving in a strange and surreal place called "Underland," she finds herself in a world that resembles the nightmares she had as a child, filled with talking animals, villainous queens and knights, and frumious bandersnatches. Alice realizes that she is there for a reason--to conquer the horrific Jabberwocky and restore the rightful queen to her throne.

Alice relates to Helena because they are both innocent at the start of their tale. They are also dismissive, vulnerable and young, however there is a sense of adventure that relates to both of them as Alice runs away from her mothers dream of marriage and finally has the courage to kill the Jabberwocky; this is similar to Helena who runs away from the Germans orders to be with Billy and have that sense of adventure.