A Midsummer Night 's Dream By William Shakespeare

Helena chases Demetrius when he claims he hates her. Helena thought Hermia was against her because jealousy is blinding. Helena also believes that Demetrius and Lysander are making fun of her.

Helena and Hermia quarrel as Helena calls Hermia “something lower than [her]self” (III.ii.303), and Hermia threatening her as her “nails can reach unto thine eyes”. (III.ii.298). Afterwards, the men also pick fights with each other, “try[ing] whose right […] is most in Helena” (III.ii.336-7). In these two situations, the women, who are not under an enchantment, are perceived as foolish as the guys, who are under enchantment. This suggests that women who are in love are just naturally foolish and are willing to pick fights with other women for stealing their lovers in comparison to men who are much more calm and reasonable until they have been cast under a literal spell where they cannot help but act foolish and aggressive. Women are also seen as naturally emotional and hysterical when it comes to love. Helena begs Demetrius to “spurn me, strike me, neglect me” (II.i.205) and that she will still “fawn on you” (II.i.204). Helena is over the top with her love for Demetrius that she does not realize what she is saying which indicates how emotional women naturally are for the ones they love and that men are much more level-headed as Demetrius shuts her down, saying that she “impeach [her] modesty too much” (II.i.214). Lastly, the women in this play, specifically Hermia, are irrational and do not think consciously. For example, when Hermia exclaims to “kill me too” (III.i.49) to Demetrius when she thought he

Love is such an abstract and intangible thing, yet it is something that everyone longs for. In Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the difficulty of love is explored through the obstacles that characters have to face while pursuing their loved ones. Those characters that are in love in the play were conflicted with troubles; however, the obstacles of love do not seem to stop them from being infatuated with each other. The concept of true love is examined throughout this play. By creating obstacles using authority and a higher power, Shakespeare examines the power of love. Through Hermia and Lysander’s loving words, it is reasonable to conclude that love conquers all if you believe in it.

In the play ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ written by William Shakespeare, an important event is when Egeus goes to Duke Theseus to force his daughter, Hermia, to marry a man whom she does not love, Demetrius. This event helps readers understand the idea of expectations of women during the patriarchal society.

However, once Oberon enchants Titania, he is able to control her romantic feelings towards Bottom, again reiterating how men are dominant when it comes to love in Shakespeare’s play. Hermia is expected to blindly follow her father’s wishes, and then Theseus’, and her will is completely disregarded. Thus far, in the play there has been a clear power struggle between the female characters and the male characters about whom they get to end up with in the end. Values of true love fall short of those pertaining to male dominance, which is shown initially by the lovers and reiterated with Oberon and Titania.

During the scene when Lysander and Demetrius are influenced by the love potion, Helena believes that they are both teasing her of her looks. She says, “If you were men, as men you are in show, you would not use a gentle lady so. ”(Act 3 Scene 2, lines 151-152) This portrays Helena’s vulnerability, as a female, as her argument which displays that she is at a disadvantage because of her gender. Hermia must meet her father’s demands.

He reports that Titania has fallen in love with Bottom. Hermia and Demetrius enter, with Hermia accusing Demetrius of killing her beloved Lysander, who has vanished. The argument reveals no truths so Hermia departs in search of Lysander, leaving Demetrius to sleep. At this point, Puck and Oberon realized that a mistake has been made and Puck is sent in search of Helena while Oberon enchants the sleeping Demetrius. They unintentionally wake Demetrius who immediately falls in love with Helena because she is the first person that he sees. Helena now thinks that Demetrius is a part of the prank because of his sudden change of heart. The situation escalates when Hermia enters. Lysander and Demetrius fight over Helena, while Helena starts a fight with Hermia. Helena thinks Hermia is also a part of the prank. Oberon rushes to retrieve the Indian boy from Titania, while Puck leads the lovers away from each other before a life is lost. They get lost in a fog and fall asleep to wake up in love.

Shakespeare’s usage of metaphor and simile in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is best understood as an attempt to provide some useful context for relationships and emotions, most often love and friendship, or the lack thereof. One example of such a usage is in Act 3, Scene 2 of the play. Here, the two Athenian couples wake up in the forest and fall under the effects of the flower, thus confusing the romantic relationships between them. Hermia comes to find her Lysander has fallen for Helena. Hermia suspects that the two have both conspired against her in some cruel joke, and begins lashing out against Helena. She says “We, Hermia, like two artificial gods, / Have with our needles created both one flower, / Both one sampler sitting on one cushion, / Both warbling of one song, both in one key; / As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds, / Had been incorporate. So we grew together, / Like a double cherry, seeming parted; / But yet a union in partition / Two lovely berries moulded on one stem: / So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart; / Two of the first, like coats in heraldry, / Due but to one, and crowned with one crest.” (Shakespeare 2.3.206-13). Shakespeare writes this list of vibrant metaphors to establish the prior relationship between these two characters and to make it evident how affected Helena is by this unexpected turn of events, as well as to add a greater range of emotion to the comedy, thereby lending it more literary and popular appeal.

One of the most notorious topics of interest in the works of Shakespeare is the role women receive in his plays. The way Shakespeare wrote his plays, women were very submissive to men and had no will and choice of their own. Women were extremely reliant upon the men in their lives, believing that they were inferior and thus following their desire for the women’s lives. This included that marriages were usually arranged by a powerful male, instead of giving the woman the opportunity of choosing marriage for love. It is not surprising that Shakespeare portrayed women in a way that was familiar to him and the time era in which he lived. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Taming of the Shrew, both focus on the development of love and not, with

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play about four Athenian lovers. Theseus listens to both Hermia and her father’s request and he tells her to bend to her father’s will or die due to the old Athenian law. Hermia and Lysander flee Athens, into the domain of the fairy kingdom. At this time, Oberon is in a fight with Titania. This fight is over a human child of Titania’s friend. Oberon tells Puck, one of his loyal servants, to get a flower hit by Cupid’s arrow, and drop the oil into Demetrius’s and Titania’s eyes. However, Puck drops the oil into Lysander’s eyes due to Oberon’s vague description, making him fall in love with Helena and despise Hermia. Titania falls in love Bottom, who has the head of an ass, after Oberon places the oil

Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream is simply a lighthearted comedy of the follies and tribulations of love. It does however have quite a few more complexities that just that. The relationships between all of the main characters serve to provide us with a glimpse of a deep dark truth hidden within the lighter side of the play. One way to find these deep dark truths of the characters is by analyzing the characters and their relationships. The characters that I will be analyzing are Titania and Oberon, and Theseus and Hippolyta.

Hermia has been promised to Demetrius by her father; however she is unwilling to marry him as she is in love with Lysander. We are introduced to this theme when they visit Thesus, the figure of authority in the play, who makes it clear that women are not to have their own identity, but instead are

A Midsummer Night 's Dream is a play about love. All of its action—from the escapades of Lysander, Demetrius, Hermia, and Helena in the forest, to the argument between Oberon and Titania, to the play about two lovelorn youths that Bottom and his friends perform at Duke Theseus 's marriage to Hippolyta—are motivated by love. But A Midsummer Night 's Dream is not a romance, in which the audience gets caught up in a passionate love affair between two characters. It 's a comedy, and because it 's clear from the outset that it 's a comedy and that all will turn out happily, rather than try to overcome the audience with the exquisite and overwhelming passion of love, A Midsummer Night 's Dream invites the audience to laugh at the way the passion of love can make people blind, foolish, inconstant, and desperate. At various times, the power and passion of love threatens to destroy friendships, turn men against men and women against women, and through

Her reality of love is questioned because there is no significant reasoning to why she loves Demetrius. So, her love is viewed as pure lust. The more she tries to chase Demetrius, the more he will distance himself from her--their love is based on just honest disinterest. Also, she is a fixed character of gender reversal by pursuing love more aggressively than a woman in her era is suppose to because they are meant to be chased, not be the chasers: “We cannot fight for love as men may do:/ We should be wooed, and were not meant to woo”(2.1.241-242). When Helena talks about the difficultness of fighting for love between men and women, she explains that women are not “meant to” have the power or strength to continously to fight for love like men because that chase should be the men’s role. Helena’s perspective can be illustrated as her love not having the same worth as if Demetrious were to chase her. Also, it shows Helena as a paradox of the non-tradition of chasing men but needing the tradition to design the worth of love. Likewise, Helena is persistent in chasing Demetrious until he loves her back. Her perspective of love is viewed as being childish, blinded by love. She attempts to seduce him in multiple occasions but he continously dismisses her and Helena uses comical language to tell him that she will never give up on him: “I am your spaniel, and, Demetrius/ The more you beat me I will fawn on you”(2.1.203-204). Shakespeare explores the subjectivity of the character’s different views of reality when it comes to understanding

Hermia is recognized as an inferior character due to her fathers commands-Egeus. Hermia endeavours to get Egeus to give permission for Lysander and herself to get married. However, he responds with a rational answer, giving her two choices: “Consent to marry with Demetrius…” “…or to her death, according to our laws…” (Shakespeare 1:1 40,44). This passage stats how Hermia is given the option to marry Demetrius or to be killed by her fathers request. Also, it describes that this act is legal and right in the laws of the Athenians as Egeus mentions. This means that women throughout the town are forced to do what their fathers say. Which proves that woman are powerless and males are given the role of superiority, this makes the society unjust. Hermia is shown as powerless towards what