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Hermia In A Midsummer Night's Dream

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Hermia is one of many important lead roles in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and is the center of a “love square” between herself, Lysander, Demetrius, and Helena. Hermia is selfish and will sacrifice her family, morals, and reputation in her seemingly all-consuming love for Lysander. Her extreme loyalty to her lover is displayed when they run away to the magic forest to be married, and although they do in the end, Hermia sacrifices much of her emotional health in her submissive following of Lysander. Hermia’s devotion and trust of Lysander is displayed when her point of view differs from the reader. This is because the reader knows that Lysander has left Hermia for Helena, but Hermia still believes he loves her. Hermia is imperceptive when she …show more content…

Shakespeare uses Hermia’s character to exemplify a woman's expected relationship towards men during that time period. Women were meant to obey the rules of men and never hold positions of power in society. This idea is displayed in the quote “Society restricted women from possessing any political or personal autonomy and power.” (Introduction to early Modern England pg 11). Shakespeare also highlights this expectation in the relationship between Hermia and her father. In fact, when Hermia wants to marry for love, Egeus informs her that she must obey him and marry Demetrius or choose between becoming and nun and being killed. (I.i.69-75). By connecting his play to society and expectations in Modern England Shakespeare also incorporates gender roles of women throughout A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Shakespeare demonstrates the gender roles of woman in his character Hermia. This is because he uses her to both display the roles of woman and how Hermia simultaneously opposes and displays the expectations at the time. Hermia neglects the notion that women should obey the men in their lives because she refuses to follow the wishes of her father, Egeus. As mentioned previously Egeus wishes for Hermia to marry Demetrius, but seeing as Hermia does not love him, she refuses to marry him. Ironically, Shakespeare also uses Hermia’s character to display the ways in

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In William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hermia's love triangle with Lysander and Demetrius is a complex interplay of both fate and agency. Throughout the play, Hermia demonstrates a strong sense of agency in shaping her own romantic fate, while also being subject to the whims of fate and the supernatural forces at play. One example of Hermia's agency is her defiance of her father's wishes for her to marry Demetrius. In Act 1, Scene 1, she says, "I do entreat your grace to pardon me. /

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Toba Beta once said: "“Justice could be as blind as love.”   Shakespeare 's play A Midsummer Night 's Dream captures the blind bias of both love and justice.   Egeus, a respected nobleman in Athens, arranged for his daughter, Hermia, to marry nobleman Demetrius.   Egeus tells his daughter that she must obey his wishes: if she does not, she can either choose to become a nun, or die.   Hermia, much to her father 's dismay, is deeply in a mutual love with a different nobleman, Lysander.

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This may also present to us that the women in this play are quite strong and independent despite the times this play is set in, Hermia's father Egeus treats Hermia as though she is his property and that she has no freedom of choice Egeus threats his daughter by death or to become a nun which shows some state of

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He did this by having two settings: Athens and the woods. Athens represented modern Elizabethan society, and here, all the women are in their stereotypical gender roles; Hermia was the dutiful daughter that had to follow her duke’s and father’s orders, Helena was the girl that was in love Demetrius but was not allowed to go after him, and Hippolyta was the captive who had to marry her captor. Athens was a society not yet prepared for the inclusion of women; essentially, Shakespeare meant that Elizabethan England was not yet ready for women to have the same rights as men. To contrast this setting, William Shakespeare made up the woods. The woods is where the four lovers run off to, and where fairyland presides.

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Shakespeare’s tragedy, Macbeth, focuses on the tumultuous events that surround a regicide. Despite being the shortest of Shakespeare’s plays, in his critical study of the play A. C. Bradley concludes that due to its vehement nature the audience is left with an impression “not of brevity but of speed” . The principal female character of Lady Macbeth is arguably one of his most contentious. Consumed with intense passion, ambition and greed she challenges the subservient role of the traditional Elizabethan woman. She has disturbed, horrified and intrigued both contemporary and modern audiences alike through her powerful diction.

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Shakespeare believes that Gender roles shouldn’t be the stereotype of any relationship because the roles can be switched, and them being switched can cause a lot of trouble. When a woman thinks for men it ends up pretty bad. The play Macbeth shows that when a man follows a women's word because they love them, that's when

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It’s no surprise, that Shakespeare’s Macbeth was clearly constructed as a rebellion against femininity roles of the time. During the Elizabethan era, women were raised to believe they were inferior to men since men obtained desired masculine qualities such as strength, and loyalty, whereas women were viewed as figures of hospitality (1; 6; 28-31). Obviously, not being tempted by the luxury of subservient women, William Shakespeare rebuked this twisted belief, applying that women deserve more respect than their kitchen tables.

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Each female character is treated by men as a possession. However, there are also moments when they are presented as confident and challenge a male authority. This would have been exiting for Shakespeare’s female Elizabethan audience as women

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First, Shakespeare challenged the policies of the day was through examining the role of courtship using the single women of the play, Helena and Hermia. One way was through the belief that women should have the right to reject men. Hermia says: “I do entreat your grace to pardon me/ I know not by what power I am made bold/

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In A Midsummer’s Night Dream, Shakespeare let the readers to explore his imagination and bring them to fantasies. A Midsummer Night’s Dream implies a world of imagination, illusion and unconsciousness through the word ‘dreams’. In the last scene of the play, act V scene I, the audience experience there is different thought of Theseus and Hippolyta in interpreting the love stories of Hermia, Lysander, Helena, Demetrius and the imaginations of many other characters. The scene of Theseus talking to Hippolyta lead to a controversy about the value of imagination and reason. From the play, the audience indeed witnesses magical incidents in the fairies’ forest, where the fairy king and queen, Oberon and Titania, rule over the natural processes.

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(He wants his daughter to marry demetrius who he knows better than Lysander). Causing him to be very strict and wants things to go his way. Egeus is then becoming angry with his daughter because of her disobeying actions in wanting to marry Lysander instead of Demetrius; Quote:” As she is mine, I may dispose of her which shall either be to this gentleman or to her death” (Act 1 scene 1 Lines 41-45) But in the end he becomes agreeable and allowed Hermia to love Lysander, But here’s the thing if the Fairies did not get involved Egeus would have went ahead and executed His own daughter for her disobedience.

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1157 Words | 5 Pages

Helena, one of the main characters of this Shakespearean comedy, expresses her thoughts on love through a soliloquy. This soliloquy is written in verse and in “iambic pentameter” - five unaccented syllables, each followed by an accented one - as the rest of the play is, but with the characteristic that it rhymes. The soliloquy is composed of “heroic couplets” - rhyming verse in iambic pentameter- in opposition to “blank verse” - unrhymed iambic pentameter- which is the predominant type of verse in the play. Helena’s soliloquy, formed, as mentioned before, by heroic couplets, follows the rhyme scheme AABBCC as can be seen in this extract: “Things base and vile, folding no quantity, (A)
Love can transpose to form and dignity: (A)
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; (B)
 And therefore is wing 'd Cupid painted blind: (B)


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776 Words | 4 Pages

Dreams are wild, magical, and mysterious. The majority of Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream is spent in a heavily wooded forest full of fairies and irrational young lovers, creating a night only fallible as a dream. The story contains a royal wedding about to take place and the young lovers Hermia and Lysander provoked to eloping because Hermia’s father will only let her marry Demetrius. Hermia’s best friend Helena, who loves Demetrius, tells Demetrius Hermia and Lysander’s plot to escape to the forest nearby so that she may follow him. Local townsmen also decide to meet in the forest to rehearse for a play to be performed at the royal wedding.

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1205 Words | 5 Pages

This piece of literature demonstrates the roles for men as the dominant gender and women as submissive, which are obsolete stereotypes. Shakespeare portrays the roles of the dominant males when Egeus tells, “as she is mine, I may dispose of her, which shall be either to this gentleman or to her death, according to our law immediately provided in that case” (1. 1. 42-45). He states this to let readers know that Hermia will not marry Lysander, and he gets the final decision. He gives her options, which are to marry him or die.

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The male characters in this play often feel uncomfortable when their female counterparts break gendered stereotypes. This is the same feeling that drove Theseus to war with the Amazons. An equally important woman is Hermia: Theseus and her father have in mind Demetrius for Hermia’s groom, yet she still refuses even after a small threat from Theseus, “Be advised, fair maid. To you, your father should be as a god” (1.1.47-48). Here in patriarchal Athens, fathers are the head households and hold influence over near-all decisions.

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