Women In A Midsummer Night's Dream By William Shakespeare

In the book, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare, Hermia is a strong-willed woman who wants to be free to marry her true love Lysander. She cannot marry him, because her father, Egeus, is making her marry Demetrius. She has two other choices, to either become a nun or die. She is not happy with his decision and feels he is being unfair. Lysander and Hermia plan to run away with each other to escape her father and the Athenian law. Hermia’s friend, Helena, may stop those plans though, because she is in love with Demetrius. She hopes to win Demetrius back by foiling Hermia’s plans. We will hear more about this intriguing story in just a bit. Hermia will make an appearance on the show, Talking with the Athenians, where we will interview her on her ideas of love.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare demonstrates greater pain for women than men. It shows male ownership of women, broken friendships over men, women outsmarted by men and women conquered by men. A Midsummer Night’s Dream reveals truths about the abuse women received during the the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare detailed the story between warring characters. From couple conflicts to love quadrilaterals and the interference of outsiders, the story played out as a comedy, with Helena on the receiving end of a running joke. Introduced in Act One as the jealous friend of Hermia, as she was in love with Demetrius, who decided to marry Hermia despite Hermia’s love for Lysander. Hermia appears rather guilty as she confirms her distaste to Demetrius to her friend. However, her father disapproves of her relationship with Lysander. Despite her co-dependent aspirations, Helena exemplifies progressive ideals that counter the societal norms of Midsummer’s era.

More often than not, men are presumed to be more foolish than women. However, in the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, this stereotype is defined, as the girls are more foolish due to their curiosity and ambition for love. Throughout this Shakespearean play, women show that they act more foolishly because they fall in, run away and chase after love. Hermia, Helena, and Titania are all examples of the foolish effects love have on women.

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 Midsummer Night 's Dream, the story starts with Theseus, duke of Athens, engaged to Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons. While preparing for their wedding, Theseus is confronted by Egeus, who brings criticism about his daughter Hermia, who refuses his wishes to marry Demetrius, for she is in love with Lysander. Egeus demands that either Hermia respects his wishes or be punished by the Athenian law. While Hermia is in love with Lysander and vice versa, Demetrius is in love with Hermia and ignores Helena, Hermia 's childhood friend, unrequited love.

The advantage a man has in an argument against a woman is undeniable; however, that does not mean the woman is completely powerless in the situation. In William Shakespeare’s play, A Midsummer Night's Dream, male characters clearly command the stage with such dominance that their voices and power seem to be more important than the females; nevertheless, in certain scenes, the females hold their own with their actions and words. In the middle of Act 1 scene, 1 Egeus rushes on stage making a commotion about how his daughter Hermia will not marry the man he chose for her to marry, but Hermia’s courage to speak up for her rights shows that women have power too. When Theseus hears Egeus’s problem, he is automatically on his side because he is male,

The uncanny resemblance that all the lovers share in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a statement of the power of young love. In his intentional ways Shakespeare sends a message of great potency that leaves readers questioning their own lives. Hermia and Helena, Lysander and Demetrius are all akin to each other, drawing the attention away from each one and lumping them

Here is my answer to A Midsummer Night’s Dream question number 3: How do genders effect the roles of the characters in A Midsummer Night’s Dream?

The hilarious play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare, tells the twisted love story of four Athenians who are caught between love and lust. The main characters: Hermia, Helena, Lysander, and Demetrius are in a ‘love square’. Hermia and Lysander are true love enthusiasts, and love each other greatly. Demetrius is in love with Hermia, and Helena, Hermia’s best friend, is deeply and madly in love with Demetrius. Hermia and Lysander try to elope in the woods because Egeus, Hermia’s father, disapproves of Lysander. Helena, hearing about their plans, tells Demetrius, and all four of them end up in the woods where Lysander’s quotation, “The course of true love never did run smooth”(28), becomes extremely evident due to several

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.

Shakespeare may be the most known playwright of all time, however, you may be surprised at how many unfair stereotypes this very famous writer incorporated into his plays. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a comedy play written by William Shakespeare in the late 1500s that portrays events surrounding the marriage of Theseus, the Duke of Athens, to the extravagant Hippolyta, the former queen of the Amazons. Such events included Demetrius jilting Helena at the altar and falling in love with Helena’s rival instead, Hermia. However, Hermia is in love with Lysander, not a disdainful youth known as Demetrius. According to feminist theory, the theory that focuses on gender inequality. A Midsummer Night’s Dream would not be considered a feminist empowerment play because throughout the play Shakespeare portrays women as timid/easily frightened. He shows men having more power than women, and perpetuates the unfair stereotype that all women must act a certain way.

Women have a specific role throughout the Elizabethan society and are known as inferior. In Shakespeare’s play, A Midsummer Nights Dream, women are told how to act by men, that reveals superiority towards men. This is portrayed by the characters-Hermia, Helena, and Titiana throughout the play. These characters were represented as powerless and blind because they fail to receive what they what and are told what to do countless amounts by the men in the play. Women's’ inferiority in the play makes it impossible for them to achieve true happiness attributable to the superiority the men in the play believe they have.

“And though she be but little, she is fierce” (3.2 335). This was said in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This represents the life women have of being perceived as small, objects, and as pointless. But as the time has gone by, women have proved to be a fierce as the Presidents of the United States. When it comes to looking at women and how they have been interpreted, the one question I have has to be why Shakespeare was against the female gander. He was a man who was raised in the 16th century so he has seen the roughness the women have to bear. He seen deal with men having numerous rights, the feeling of cross dressing to get what they desire, and also fight for their own individual rights. Looking into Shakespeare’s work and interpreting his meaning behind the treatment of women, there are many forms that take place from feminist actions to the appearance that is showing women, including men, living on their daily lives.

Shakespeare and the members of the Elizabethan era would be appalled at the freedoms women experience today.  The docility of Elizabethan women is almost a forgotten way of life. What we see throughout Shakespeare’s plays is an insight into the female character as perceived by Elizabethan culture.  Shakespeare’s female characters reflect the Elizabethan era’s image of women; they were to be virtuous and obedient and those that were not were portrayed as undesirable and even evil.