A Comparison of A Midsummer Night's Dream and Romeo and Juliet

Hermia and Lysander’s relationship is difficult due to Athenian law and Egeus. The Athenian law states that a father has the power to decide who his daughter marries. Egeus states to the Duke of Athens,

The love that Lysander and Hermia share is very unlike the relationship between Helena and Demetrius. Lysander and Hermia have loved each other for a very long period of time and have dreamed of getting married. However, Hermia’s father, Egeus, disapproves of this couple. Hermia and Lysander’s love for each other is tested when Egeus tries to shatter their relationship

He is more like a butler and she is more like the lady of the house. And with that class, Hermia’s father does not approve of their mutual love for each other. As Egeus says in Act 1 Scene 1, “This man hath bewitched the bosom of my child: Thou, thou Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes, and interchanged love-tokens with my child...” By saying

Hermia’s speech in Act 2, Scene 2, of Shakespeare 's A Midsummer Night’s Dream, contains an abundance of dream imagery. She has awoken from a terrible dream after falling asleep in the forest with Lysander. They were lost and tired so they decided to rest. Lysander wanted to sleep beside her but, she refused since they are not yet married and while they slept Puck applied a love potion on Lysander’s eyes thinking he was Demetrius. Lysander wakes and is repulsed by the sight of Hermia and never wants to see her again because he is now in love with Helena. Hermia awakes from her terrible dream and retells it thinking that Lysander is nearby listening. Then she realizes that he is not there and she does not see him anywhere. Hermia expresses the sentiment that she will find Lysander or she will surely die. She stated,

In the story, both in the play and in the movie, Egeus and Theseus were discussing on Hermia and how she needs to marry Demetrius. Since Hermia does not love Demetrius, she wants to marry Lysander. When Egeus and Theseus offer Hermia to either die, become a nun all her life, or marry Demetrius, Hermia is not afraid. Her love for Lysander is that great, that she is willing even to die for

There will always be someone trying to change someone’s feelings on who they love. Hermia’s father, Egeus, wants her to marry Demetrius, someone who he picked out, and not Lysander who is the one she is in love with. Hermia then argues that she wants to marry Lysander. Hermia and Lysander then come up with a plan to run away into the woods. Demetrius is actually in love with the person he is forced to marry. He told Hermis that the title of husband would be his. He also told Helena to quit following him in the woods while he was trying to look for Hermia. Theseus also told Hermia that he would give her four days to decide if she wants to marry Lysander or Demetrus. He told Hermia that Demetrius was a lovely gentleman and it wouldn’t be bad if she married him. However, he did not want to

When Hermia cannot find Lysander, she runs into Demetrius in the forest. She exclaims, "If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep, / Being o'er shoes in blood, plunge in the deep, / and kill me too." (3.2.47-49). Hermia, while crazed over Lysander's disappearance, easily believes that Demetrius would kill Lysander. She believes he would to anything, even kill, for their marriage.

Hermia makes her animosity towards these stereotypes of women known throughout the entire play. When Hermia is treated as an object that her father “may dispose of” if she does not marry Demetrius (1.1.42). She decides that this is the last straw and does not want to be treated like this anymore. Egeus decides he should continue to insult his own daughter by saying he “should be as a god.../one to whom [Hermia] [is] but as a form in wax” meaning that without Egeus, Hermia would be nothing and he is the reason she is the way she is (1.1.48-50). This is when she decides to run away with Lysander. The first night in the woods after Hermia and Lysander run away with one another, Lysander pushes the idea that he and Hermia must sleep with each other

Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream are both based on the same tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe which explains why they are very much alike. Although Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy and A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a comedy, these two plays share many similarities such as the theme of power and control. Shakespeare develops the theme of power and control likewise in both Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream by displaying the character’s oblivion to the amount of power they obtain.

Two determined men willing to do anything to get the one they love. In the comedy A Midsummer's Night Dream by William Shakespeare two men named Lysander and Demetrius fight for the one they love. Demetrius has consent to marry the one he loves Hermia, but she loves Lysander. During all this another woman named Helena is madly in love with Demetrius. Helena finds out she will die if she will not marry Demetrius. Hermia and Lysander run away through a forest with Demetrious looking for them, and Helena following Demetrious. Lysander and Demetrius are similar in their love for hermia but have different women love them. In today's world Demetrius would do better because he follows the rules, and is more skeptical than lysander.

In Athens, women had very little rights. Womens fathers were the ones who got to choose whom they married, and that caused trouble for the lovers. Hermia’s father, Egeus, strongly believed in this rule. At the beginning, Egeus decides that he wants Hermia to marry Demetrius, which is good for Demetrius but bad for Hermia. Hermia, daringly refuses her father’s wishes, so they seek the help of Theseus, the Duke of Athens. Theseus listens to their situation, and being the authority in the situation, tells Hermia: “Either to die the death, or to abjure for the society of men. Therefore, fair Hermia,... if you yield not to your father’s choice, you can endure the livery of a nun...”(24). This shows how authority, in this case the law, gets in the way of “the course of true love…”(28). Egeus’s decision to have Hermia marry Demetrius does not only affect Hermia but also affects Helena. When Hermia’s father chooses Demetris to be her

What if I told you that no matter what you look at or how many times you look at it, you’ll never truly be able to see it. Often the things we perceive as the most trustworthy are only misinterpretations of reality created by our perspective, which make common illusions. Characters in Romeo & Juliet and A Midsummer Night 's Dream also experience this idea, demonstrated when they are tricked by their own perspective and only see what they think is the best scenario. Illusions are created based on people 's perceptions of reality. It is then clear that in Romeo & Juliet and A Midsummer Night 's Dream, perspective creates reality. This perspective creates a version of truth that hides the reality from people 's eyes. This is shown when Lysander is tricked by the magic flower into loving Helena, Friar Lawrence calling Romeo a girl due to his tears, as well as having hallucinations while under the effects of drugs.

Disagreements about dating and marriage often occur between parents and their children. Hermia especially had this issue with her father. Egeus, Hermia’s father, disliked Lysander, because he states “With cunning hast thou filched my daughter’s heart,” ( I,i,37) by this Egeus

In the play the reader gets the truth that Hermia’s father wants her to marry Demetrius, and as a woman living in a patriarchal society, she must obey; at least that is what the reader is lead to believe. Hermia takes a stand for herself and becomes powerless in her love for Lysander. With no reasonable explanation, besides her love for Lysander, she defiantly denies her father’s attempt for an arranged marriage. Since their love for each other is so immense, they prepare for the underlying bad circumstances they are going to suffer from for not obeying the wishes of her father. Hermia’s love for Lysander means so much more to her than the property or social placeholder she would gain by marrying Demetrius. Hermia dedicates herself to Lysander, saying he is worthy of the ultimate consummation of her love. She must convince her father that Demetrius is disgraceful and immoral. At the end of the play, Hermia and Lysander are eloped, and unlike Katherine and Petruccio in TOS, they demonstrate their dedication for each other from the beginning, disregarding a few

I appreciated all three styles of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but some were clearly better than others. The play was outstanding, it was of much higher quality than the text and the movie. I disfavor the text, it was unsatisfactory and hard to understand. The movie did not have a lasting impact, it was not a high quality performance and was utterly tedious. Overall the play was my favorite of the genres, displaying A Midsummer Night’s Dream.