Sympathy For Characters In A Midsummer Night's Dream By William Shakespeare

The plot of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is made up of four subplots that intertwine with one another. Four young Athenians forced to flee from authority in response to an arranged marriage, a estranged relationship between the King and Queen of Faeries, a group of players fighting over a play, and a wedding. While each of these subplots are unique, they are connected not only by one event but a binary theme—control and rebellion. In the case of the four Athenian lovers, the binary theme of control and rebellion is obvious.

A Misummer Night’s Dream is a comedy play written by William Shakespeare. In this play there are multiple themes however the most evident theme is love. Why is love an evident theme? It is an evident theme because the play commences with two Greek mythology characters─ the Duke of Athens, Theseus and Amazon queen Hippolita planning their marriage. However as Theseus plans his marriage he has to help Egeus persuade his daughter Hermia to marry Demetrius. Unfortunately both the Duke and Egeus failed to persuade Hermia into marrying Demetrius so the fairies (another set of characters. The fairies in this play consisted of goddess of chastity and Queen of fairies, Titania and King of fairies Oberon and his assistance Robin Goodfellow) decide

The story of A Midsummer Night's Dream was mainly about love and its abnormal dealings. In the play, Shakespeare tried to show that love is unpredictable, unreasonable, and at times is blind. The theme of love was constantly used during the play and basically everything that was said and done was related to the concept of love and its unpredictable ness. Shakespeare made all of the characters interact their lives to be based on each other’s. At first, everything was very confusing, and the characters were faced with many different problems. In the end, however, they were still able to persevere and win their true love, the love they were searching for in the first place.

At the time, Lysander and Hermia were completely smitten with each other. But her father Egeus disapproved of their relation and wishes for Hermia to marry Demetrius. He comes to Theseus with these concerns and uses his Athenian rights to chose the man his daughter wed. Disrespecting his daughter’s feelings and clearly biased against Lysander, Egeus went so far as to dishonor him before the duke and force Hermia into a position where she must follow his wishes, die or become a nun. Hermia refuses every option, but their love is clearly disrupted with this great obstacle. In contrast to Egeus’ claims of Lysander’s trickery, Hermia and Lysander are clearly devoted to each other. Hermia clings onto their love and Lysander comforts her in a manner that gives him the reputation of a romantic. Before concluding, “So quick bright things come to confusion”, he says that “The course of true love never did run smooth” (Shakespeare, P15). Love brings happiness, it nourishes the soul and completes one’s heart, but it can fall short just as easily and bring about even greater hate. Another example of this involves the Oberon and Titania, the King and Queen of fairies respectively. They start off as a separate layer in this play and though their fondness for each other isn’t described as thoroughly, their conflict stands

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,

William Shakespeare starts with a seemingly unresolvable conflict in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The main characters are lovers who are either unrequited in their love or hassled by the love of another. These lovers are inevitably paired. How does Shakespeare make this happen? He creates many subplots that, before long, are all snarled up into a chaotic knot. So, what actions does Shakespeare take to resolve these new quandaries? He ends up trusting a single key entity with his comedy. It’s only then that he introduces a special character into his world: a mischievous fairy whom is known by the name of Puck. Puck is the catalyst for all these subplots and, indeed, for the entirety of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Try to take Puck

Love is many things, and is also used as a reference to sight and vision such as blindness. It is much more than aesthetics and wields the power of sight, and can also cause chaos and destruction. Similarly, Shakespeare utilizes two types of blindness by love; the first being physical due to a love potion a fairy king, Oberon orders upon the humans in Shakespeare’s, A Midsummers Night’s Dream. The second, being metaphorical due to Antony’s immense amount of love towards Cleopatra, in which hinders his political motivation in Shakespeare’s, Antony and Cleopatra.

Love, while considered to be a wonderful experience, can also be a turbulent force that causes chaos. In Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream, love contributes much to the conflict involving Lysander, Demetrius, and Hermia. This conflict is shown in three ways: Hermia's life is threatened for wanting to marry the man she loves. Hermia and Lysander are forced to make a risky decision to preserve their love, and a hateful relationship forms between Demetrius and Lysander due to their love for Hermia. The confused relationships between these lovers causes turmoil within A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Theseus gives her the safest and smartest choice, marrying Demetrius and obeying her father. It would be the safest due to the fact her father has no problem getting rid of her. “As she is mine, I may dispose of her, which shall be either to this gentlemen or to her death according to our law immediately provided in that case” (Shakespeare3). Choosing this option would cause a lot less problems and make things easier for everyone, but Hermia loves Lysander too much, so she takes the harder road out and decides to run off with Lysander and get married, putting a big risk on many things in her life. “She is even prepared to give up her family and way of life to marry Lysander, agreeing to elope with him into the forest” (Hermia). The love she shares with Lysander seems much stronger than the

“Though she be but little, she is fierce!” With this statement, William Shakespeare’s character, Helena, depicts Hermia in the play A Midsummer Night's Dream. I, conversely, will use this statement to introduce the country of Luxembourg. The Central Intelligence Agency’s World Factbook affirms that Luxembourg is located in Western Europe and is geographically landlocked, as it is bordered by the countries France, Belgium, and Germany (The World Factbook). The Encyclopedia of the Nations states that Luxembourg is one of the smallest nations in the world with an area of 2,586 sq km, which is slightly smaller than Rhode Island- the smallest state in size of the United States of America (Encyclopedia of the Nations). The World

Hermia did not want to because she loved another man named Lysander. Egeus went to have his daughter put to death. Hermia told her father that she loved Lysander. She also told him that the man that he picked for her to marry, Demetrius, loved Hermia's friend, Helena. She also told him that Helena loved Demetrius.

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

Egeus goes to the duke Theseus in the commencement of the theatrical performance, and asks the gracious duke and conqueror to solve the dilemma he is in. Hermia absolutely will not marry Demetrius, even though he is sponsored by her very father, and so Egeus is furious at her. Egeus wishes for the duke to tell his prepossessing daughter that she is to marry Demetrius or die, but Theseus kindly and wisely adds the option of leaving all men for eternity and being cloistered in a nunnery. If Hermia chooses any of the options, she will face a life away from her paramour, the handsome youth, Lysander. Therefore, Hermia and Lysander’s love faces challenges, and is true because of this.

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.

Throughout history literature has changed into many different forms and styles, it has also stayed the same in many different ways, literary techniques and elements are key to a good piece of writing, a perfect example that shows us just this is in, A Midsummer Nights Dream, where we will further explore the different literary elements that were used most notably the plot. The plot of a story lays out the foundation and the background for the entire play to come, we'll compare and contrast this element and look at the different sub elements which are produced. We will define similarities and difference in these elements form both the play o the film. Taking a look at things such as climax, play incidents, and the conflict will all give us