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The portrayal of love in a midsummers night dream
strengths and flaws for hermia from the midsummer nights dream
love and magic in the midsummers night dream
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Shakespeare’s literature exemplifies creativeness and powerful word use to create bodies of work with strong attributes that grab the reader’s attention. Midsummer’s night dream is an example of some of Shakespeare’s best work. The thesis of this essay is Hermia’s father, Esues wants his daughter to marry someone that he approves of and more importantly he wants someone for her that is respected by the rest of society to admire. This play has love, drama and characters that follow their hearts. Hermia is told she is not allowed to love or marry Lysander by her father. Her father Esues wants her to marry Demetrius. The setting of the play is taken in Athens. Athens is a place of order and royalty and a place where people are supposed to marry …show more content…
Many people who saw this play during this time period must have had somewhat of similar situations with their fathers and the man who they ended up having to marry. Women during this time period were simply not heard or respected for that matter. There was institutional subordination between men and women. The father seemed to have ultimate say and if the daughter wanted to get married the father would pick a scenario that would somehow benefit him and his family’s future. In Midsummer’s night dream case Hermia is threatened with becoming a nun or being killed if she does not follow her father’s …show more content…
Religion during this time period was arguably the most important part of being alive. So for Thesus to lay it out like Esues is a god, represents how serious the matter is if Hermia doesn’t marry Demetrius. In the eyes of Hermia, she doesn’t seem to think her father is a god and she shouldn’t after what he is threatening to do with her if she disobeys. The next part continues to show how powerful the father figure was. “One that composed your beauties”. This goes back to how some of Shakespeare’s plays seem to have a girl who is beautiful and who seems to be in a tricky situation. The beautiful woman has become very lucky because she is beautiful but she seems to always wants what she isn’t allowed too. The rest of the play is usually filled with challenges and unlucky sequences where the female character has to overcome situations. Usually the only positive mindset these characters have is love. Shakespeare makes these characters who can have any man they want to marry, struggle because in some sense it is the first thing in their lives they have had to really work hard for. Shakespeare wants his audience to see the comedy between a man and a woman within the idea of marriage in his plays. He also wants there to be drama and the act of fighting for what one really believes in. The character has to fight
William Shakespeare, an illustrious and eminent playwright from the Elizabethan Age (16th Century) and part owner of the Globe theatre wrote A Midsummer Night’s Dream in which he portrays the theme of love in many different ways. These include the paternal love seen in the troubled times for Egeus and his rebellious daughter Hermia, true Love displayed with the valiant acts of Lysander and Hermia and the destructive love present in the agonizing acts of Titania towards her desperate lover Oberon. Through the highs and lows of love, the first love we clasp is the paternal love from our family.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, penned by the acclaimed author William Shakespeare, demonstrates erratic relationships in the form of a romantic comedy. The play takes place in ancient Athens where Theseus, duke of Athens, and his fiancé, Hippolyta, prepare for their grand wedding. During the preparations, Theseus must settle a dispute between a man named Eugeus and his daughter, Hermia. Hermia desires to marry a charming young man by the name of Lysander, however, her father forces her to wed Demetrius. Throughout the story, Hermia and many other women, battle with their love affairs. Through these chaotic love affairs, the predominant female characters show their strengths as well as their weaknesses through various events in the play. Two
First, Shakespeare uses the motif of the seasons early on in the play to solidify the connection between love gone awry and chaos. The initial romantic conflict is established when Egeus brings his daughter, Hermia, to Theseus to try and force her into marrying Demetrius, the man of his choice. Hermia has no interest in Demetrius because she is madly in love with Lysander. Unfortunately for her, Theseus sides with Egeus and threatens to enforce Athenian law if she does not obey him. Obviously, this situation is awful for Hermia; she is being kept from her true love. Her options are dismal: she has the choice of disobeying Egeus, betraying Lysander, or living a lonely life as a nun. Either way, she loses. The situation seems completely hopeless. Shakespeare illustrates this hopelessness by connecting Hermia’s grim future with the winter. When Theseus describes Hermia’s potential future, he calls her a “withering” rose and a “barren sister,” destined to a life of “chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon” (Shakespeare 1.1.75). Essentially, Hermia will be trapped in an endless winter. This unnatural seasonal change will become a reality if she becomes a nun and remains celibate. For a young woman who is passionately in love with a young man...
Hermia went against her father and the duke when they both told her she had to marry Demetrius or be sent to a convent or executed, instead she ran away into the woods to elope with Lysander. Lysander stayed with Hermia and ran into the woods, risking being lost and possibly death, for a chance to marry Hermia. In Shakespeare’s 29th sonnet he explains how at times he wishes he had more; more beauty, more possessions, and more power, until he thinks of this girl, after that he feels confident and content with the love and the life he possesses, and he wouldn 't trade places with anyone, including a king. this he also shows is true love, undoubting, positive and forever supporting. The risk of a fallacious love for a chance of true love, is often considered worth it, however as humans we are surrounded by love but more often than not, its platonic instead of
Similar to other works by Shakespeare, such as The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night’s Dream embellishes the pressures that arise between genders dealing with complicated family and romantic situations. The plot includes a duke who is going to marry a woman he conquered in battle, the king and queen of the fairies embroiled in a fight so fierce that it unbalances the natural world, and a daughter fighting with her father for her right to marry the man she chooses. The girl’s father selects Demetrius to marry his daughter, but she is in love with another man, Lysander, who loves her in return, and her friend Helena is in love Demetrius, but he wants nothing to do with her. Considering the fact that males were dominant during that era, whereas, men chased women, and women remained submissive, Shakespeare dallies with those traditional roles and there are several possible reasons why. Perhaps he made women a stronger force in his plays because he wanted to give his audience a break fr...
When we first meet Hermia in the play called A Midsummer Night's Dream, written by William Shakespeare, she is a girl in love against her father's wishes. From the very start of the play we can see how much enamored she is with Lysander. We can also see that Hermia is a woman with her own desires, and does not liked to be forced to do things that she does not want. She does not want to marry the man that her father betrothed to her, even though it could mean her demise. Her choices of living in a nunnery and live the life of chastity was not an option for Hermia. She loved Lysander and all she wanted was to be with him.
Women in the play, A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare are degraded and treated as objects. Agreeing with The Plays Affirmation of Patriarchy by Shirley Garner, I believe that the women of the play are not respected and treated as though they are subjects to the men. Shirley’s essay brings up detailed and specific examples in which women are degraded. Women throughout the play are forced into situations in which they do not want to partake in. Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, and Hermia, daughter of Egeus are forced into marriages. Women are also taken advantage of throughout the play by the men they love. Helena, a young woman in love with Demetrius, is taken advantage of by him, and Titania, queen of the fairies is put under a spell by Oberon. The treatment of the women by the men in this play is inappropriate and disgusting.
In order to accurately describe the role of women in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, one must first explore the female characters in the text. Shakespeare's works had few females because women were not allowed to act in London in the late 1500s and early 1600s. Disregarding the standards imposed on women of his time, Shakespeare created many female characters that were strong-willed, intelligent, and daring. Hermia of A Midsummer Night's Dream is one such character. She disobeys her father, her king, and the Athenian law so that she might marry the love of her life. She discards all the luxuries of her familiar and comfortable existence for the uncertainties of a distant land in exchange for the freedom to love Lysander. The only complaint against Hermia by feminist critics stems from her willingness to defy one set of confinements derived and maintained by men-her father, the king, and the male authors of Athenian law-to become the subordinate of yet another man. However, even though she rebels away from the limitations she ultimately runs towards, she is much more indep...
In the first part of the play Egeus has asked the Duke of Athens, Theseus, to rule in favor of his parental rights to have his daughter Hermia marry the suitor he has chosen, Demetrius, or for her to be punished. Lysander, who is desperately in love with Hermia, pleads with Egeus and Theseus for the maiden’s hand, but Theseus’, who obviously believes that women do not have a choice in the matter of their own marriage, sides with Egeus, and tells Hermia she must either consent to marrying Demetrius, be killed, or enter a nunnery. In order to escape from the tragic dilemma facing Hermia, Lysander devises a plan for him and his love to meet the next evening and run-off to Lysander’s aunt’s home and be wed, and Hermia agrees to the plan. It is at this point in the story that the plot becomes intriguing, as the reader becomes somewhat emotionally “attached’’ to the young lovers and sympathetic of their plight. However, when the couple enters the forest, en route to Lysander’s aunt’s, it is other mischievous characters that take the story into a whole new realm of humorous entertainment...
From the beginning, Hermia defiantly denies her father’s attempts at an arranged marriage, in favor of her whirlwind romance with and marriage to Lysander. In her defense, she uses words of chastity and moral purity to claim her fidelity and love towards Lysander and inability to wed Demetrius “I know not by what power I am made bold / nor how it may concern my modesty” (pp). The concern, or befitting, of Hermia’s modesty, by not wedding Demetrius, is protecting the very essence of her womanhood from someone whom she feels isn’t worth of the ultimate consummation of love – marriage (and the subsequent sex). This is continued in her next dialogue, where Hermia states that she would rather die “quote” (pp) or become a nun than give up her virgin “privilege” “quote” (pp). Hermia’s claims of “privilege” and “sovereignty” validate her chastity and moral purity as something that should only be shared with Lysander, not Demetrius. However, the sovereignty of Hermia’s claims also fits in with Demetrius’ arguments regarding his rights to Hermia’s hand in marriage: “quote” (pp). Demetrius’ use of “sovereignty” and “right” turns the supposed “love” of Hermia and Demetrius’ arranged marriage into a legal contract, where Hermia is property and social placeholder instead of a loving companion.
In response to Hermia’s defiance toward marrying Demetrius, Theseus offers Hermia three choices in the first scene: to obey her father’s will; to become a nun and forever stay an unwed virgin; to die. The extremity of these punishments presented by Theseus, and Hemia’s decision to accept these punishments rather than marry Demetrius, exaggerates how love can lead to irrational sacrifices. Shakespeare then compares a married woman to a plucked and distilled rose, and an unwed woman to a withering unplucked rose on a “virgin thorn.” This potent imagery contrasts the sweet smell of perfume to the harmful touch of a thorn. If Hermia continues to defy the desires of her father, she is sacrificing a happily married life in hopes of following he...
The relationship between Demetrius and Hermia is problematic, in that Demetrius is seeking the affections of Hermia, while she is in love with Lysander. However, Hermia’s father approves of Demetrius and tries to force her to marry him, but Hermia refuses because of her love for Lysander (A Midsummer Night’s Dream 1.1.22-82). Lysander points out the flaw in the situation through this comment, “You have her father 's love, Demetrius –/Let me have Hermia 's. Do you marry him,” (A Midsummer Night’s Dream 1.1.93-94). The second flawed relationship is between Lysander and Helena, as a result of an enchantment put on Lysander that made him fall in love with Helena. Helena does not want the affections of Lysander, but rather the love of Demetrius, and believes that Lysander is taunting her. In addition, this relationship creates tensions because Hermia is in love with Lysander (A Midsummer Night’s Dream 2.2.109-140). Both relationships are not desirable due to a lack of mutual admiration and the creation of non-peaceful and unsatisfying
In Shakespeare’s comedies The Taming of the Shrew and A Midsummers Night Dream, both fathers can be overlooked due to their few occurrences, but are pivotal to the storyline. In the fathers’ pursuits to find favorable suitors for their daughters, their inattentiveness leads to the daughters choosing the men they want to marry. Bianca’s father, Baptista in The Taming of the Shrew is consumed with finding a suitor for his eldest daughter Katherine before Bianca, distracting him from Bianca’s communication with Lucentio, a man who wants to marry her but is disguised as a tutor named Cambio while his servant Tranio pretends to be him. Baptista does not pay much attention to what Bianca is doing because she appeared to be an obedient daughter compared to her shrewish sister. Comparing this with Egeus, Hermia’s father in A Midsummers Night Dream, Egeus clearly insists that he wants Hermia to marry the one of her suitors, Demetrius, yet he does not persistently enforce this throughout the play. Egeus is absent
William Shakespeare has become one of the most famous and influential writers in the English literature, and his work has been reenacted and studied all over the world for several decades. However, we often do not get the chance to admire all of his other plays as the school curriculum in high school only covers his four most famous tragedies plays like Rome and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, and Othello. Now, as a college student, I am able to appreciate his work more as my have recently seen Shakespeare Midwinter Night’s Dream which is based on Shakespeare’s real play Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, a comedy that portrays the events that surround the marriage of a Duke, the love of four young lovers and a group of amateur actors that must put an act for the Duke on his wedding. In this version of Shakespeare Midwinter’s Night’s Dream, all of the original characters and the dialogues were left
William Shakespeare, born in 1594, is one of the greatest writers in literature. He dies in 1616 after completing many sonnets and plays. One of which is "A Midsummer Night’s Dream." They say that this play is the most purely romantic of Shakespeare’s comedies. The themes of the play are dreams and reality, love and magic. This extraordinary play is a play-with-in-a-play, which master writers only write successfully. Shakespeare proves here to be a master writer. Critics find it a task to explain the intricateness of the play, audiences find it very pleasing to read and watch. "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" is a comedy combining elements of love, fairies, magic, and dreams. This play is a comedy about five couples who suffer through love’s strange games and the evil behind the devious tricks. This play begins as Theseus, the Duke, is preparing to marry Hippolyta. He woos her with his sword. Hermia is in love with Lysander. Egeus, Hermia’s father, forbids the relationship with Lysander and orders her to marry Demetrius. Demetrius loves Hermia, but she does not love him. On the other hand, Helena is in love with Demetrius. To settle the confusion, Theseus decides that Hermia must marry Demetrius or become a nun. In retaliation to her father’s command, Hermia and Lysander run away together. Amidst all the problems in the human world, Titania and Oberon, the fairy queen and king, continually argue about their various relationships that they have taken part in. (Scott 336) Titania leaves Oberon as a result of the arguments. Oberon is hurt and wants revenge on Titania. So he tells Puck, Oberon’s servant, to put a magic flower juice on her eyelids while she is sleeping. This potion causes the victim to desperately in love with the first creature that they see. Oberon’s plan is carried out, but the potion is also placed on Lysander’s eyes. Lysander awakes to see Helena, who is aimlessly walking through the woods, and instantly falls in love with her. She thinks that he is making fun of her being in love with Demetrius, so she leaves and Lysander follows. This leaves Hermia to wake up alone. Puck now has journeyed to the area where several actors are rehearsing. He uses his magic to turn one of them into a donkey, in hopes that Titania will awake to see it.