by Jenn Weiss

Created on: April 10, 2009

There are many different characters within Shakespeare's A Mid Summer Night's Dream. Some are major characters like Lysander and Demetrius, while others are minor like Hippolyta. Each character plays a role within the storyline. A Mid Summer Night's Dream focuses on two couples Hermia and Lysander and Helena and Demetrius, but Helena and Demetrius aren't a couple. When Hermia and Lysander esacpe to get married they run into the mischief of the fairies. King Oberon wants to teach his Queen Titania a lesson so he has Puck find a flower which has magical effects on those whos eyes were covered with the juice from this flower. He also tells Puck to effect the Athenian man who isn't in love with the Athenian man. But Puck confuses the two men and places the juice on Lysander who falls in love with Helena and all kinds of mischief ensues. randomly throughout the play are the rude mechanicals which are a group of men who are practicing for a play which is performed at the end of the play.

Hermia and Lysander are two of the Athenian youths in the play. They are madly in love with each other and want to marry, but Hermia's father forbids it. That is the reason they decide to run off and get married in another town, away from the laws of their own town. Hermia's father Egeus wants her to marry Demetrius, whom she does not love. She is strong willed and independent for a woman in the era Shakespeare wrote. Lysander is a young Athenian nobleman in love with Hermia. He feels the need to compete with Demetrius for the love of Hermia even though he already has it. He believes that love can conquer all.

Helena is Hermia's childhood friend who is deeply in love with Demetrius. He proclaimed his love to her, but then she was abandoned by him when he met Hermia. Her tone is pretty much self pity, always putting herself down, but also following Demetrius around like a love-sick puppy. She puts herself into situations where she will be embarrassed by Demetrius. One of my favorite lines comes from her: "We cannot fight for love as men may do, we are to be wooed and were not made to woo. I'll follow thee and make heaven of hell to die upon the hand I love so well." Demetrius is not deterred by the idea that Hermia wants to marry Lysander, and sought the approval of her father over Lysander despite proclaiming his love to Helena first. He seems to want a woman til she wants him, then he tosses her aside for someone new.

Oberon is the king of the fairies and Titania is his wife. When

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