Summary of A Midsummer Night's Dream Characters | William Shakespeare

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Summary of A Midsummer Night's Dream Characters | William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare

SETTING 

Place: Athens

Time: Midsummer night

A midsummer night takes place around ancient Athens, Greece. Initially, it takes place in the palace of Theseus during the day, but the middle part of the play takes place in the Athenian forest during the moonlit night. And the ending part of the action again returns to the palace of Theseus. In a sense, there are two spatial settings, i.e., Athenian wood and a duke's palace. Similarly, there are also two temporal settings, i.e., night and day. The first and last parts take place during the day, whereas the jungle scene happens in the moonlight.

 

CHARACTERS 

A Midsummer Night's Dream Characters

Theseus:

He is the duke of Athens. He has persuaded the queen Amazon, Hippolyta, to marry him. In the final act, their marriage takes place.

Actually, he is the mighty king. He maintains law and order in Athens. Initially, he supports Egeus's wish to marry his daughter to Demetrius. But at the end of the play, forgetting Egeus's requests, he allows Hermia to marry her favourite lover, Lysander. In fact, the name Theseus has great significance in ancient Greek myth. The name Theseus is frequently mentioned in many texts by Homer, Euripides, and so on. He is a heroic figure in Greek legend because he killed a monster in Minos. But Shakespeare's Theseus has nothing to do with the ancient Greek myth hero Theseus. However, there is a similarity only with the name Theseus. 

Hippolyta:

She is the Amazon queen whom Theseus has wooed. Shakespeare's Hippolyta echoes a Greek legendary figure, Hippolyta, who was an Amazon queen of fierceness, pride, and strength.

 

Hermia:

Hermia is the daughter of Egeus. She rejects her father's wish. She loves and wants to marry Lysander. Later, she escapes with Lysander to the jungle, as Theseus ordered her to follow her father's wish.

Actually, her father wants her to marry Demetrius. In the middle of the play, Hermia gets into trouble in the forest as her lover Lysander is controlled by love juice and expresses his love to Helena.

Actually, in Freudian psychology, while sleeping separately with Lysander in the forest, she sees a snake in her dreams that symbolises her sexual desire because, for Freud, a snake in a female's dreams stands for a male's phallus.

 

Demetrius:

He is the chosen suitor by Egeus for his daughter, Hermia. He was originally in love with Helena but later became content with Hermia; he seems to care about her too much. So he seems to be cold with Helena in the jungle. He does not want her to follow him. But later, Puck's magical juice brought him to the previous stage of love, i.e., with Helena. After that, he confesses his love for Helena. But there is also the potential for them to break up their love affair in the future if Demetrius is removed by magical juice.

 

Oberon:

He is the King of Fairies and lives in the jungle. He is so jealous of the queen, Titania, because the queen wants to raise her friend's son as her own, and she does not allow Oberon to touch the boy. Actually, jealous Oberon wants to make this boy his slave. To do this, he uses magical power and drops magical juice in her eyes. After that, he succeeds in handing that boy to her. He is a little bit kind. He is the one who reconciles the unloved stage of Demetrius with Helena, ordering Puck to use magical juice in Demetrius' eyes. In fact, Oberon, through magical juice, does both right and wrong things.

 

Titania:

She is the wife of King Oberon and the queen of fairies. Her husband's use of magical juice in her eyes made her fall in love with Bottom. Later, she was freed from love juice and came into a normal situation.

 

Puck:

Puck is also known as Robin Goodfellow. He is a jester and works for Oberon. King Oberon, with his help, succeeds in making the queen's favourite boy his slave. Puck is very loyal to King Oberon, but he is less thoughtful, less human, and more cruel. He, without any lofty reason, transforms Bottom's head into Ass's head. Similarly, his mistake of putting love juice on Lysander instead of Demetrius causes the dual fighting between Helena and Hermia, Lysander and Demetrius, and Helena and Lysander. He always shows his eagerness to fulfil the king's command. He takes part in both the good and bad activities of the king. Actually, Puck does more bad things than good.

 

Bottom:

He is a weaver. He is one of the members of the Actor Company. To rehearse the play, he and other actors go to the jungle, but his head is transformed into Ass's head by Puck. Later, at the end of the play, he is freed from Puck's magic and goes to the palace to play his role in the play.

"The most lamentable comedy..."

CHAPTERWISE SUMMARY 

A Midsummer Night's Dream Characters

Act 1, scene I

In the ancient city of Athens, Theseus, Duke of Athens, and Hippolyta, the Amazon Warrior Queen, are going to marry very soon. In such a good environment, Egeus brought his problem before the king. He came before Egeus to complain that his daughter should choose Demetrius and not love Lysander. It means Egeus wants her daughter to marry Demetrius, but Hermia refuses his desire to love Lysander. So. he requests that Theseus help him. Later on, Theseus takes the side of Egeus. He orders his attendants to fetch Hermia to his court.

Theseus asks Hermia about her love affair with Lysander. She boldly answers that she is in love with him, and she also adds that Demetrius does not love her, but he is loved by Helena. But this revelation does not work in front of the duke. Duke gave her four days' ultimatum to accept her father's desire. If she refuses to marry Demetrius, she must stay as a nun, or she will be put to death.

After hearing such words from Duke, Lysander and Hermia plan to escape secretly to Lysander's aunt's house, which is far from Athens, and there are no Athenian rules and laws against Hermia and Lysander. Hermia tells their plan only to Helena. She also adds that Helena should tell Demetrius to escape with them. Helena accepts her proposal.

 

Scene II

In scene II, there is preparation for the drama to be performed at the duke's wedding. To do this, a carpenter, a joiner, a weaver, a tinker, and a tailor are going to the woods to rehearse their play. They want to rehearse in the jungle because they want to give the fresh item. They all have a role to play. And the title of their play is "The Most Lamentable Comedy and the Crude Death of Pyramus and Thisbe."

 

Act II, Scene I

The scene shifts to the Athenian jungle, where Lysander and Hermia will meet very soon. Actually, that jungle is ruled by Oberon, the king of fairies, and his queen, Titania. Oberon's jester, Puck, also lives there. In this scene, King Oberon and Queen Titania are quarrelling over a little boy. Oberon wants to make him his slave, but Titania refuses to give him because his mother has been Titania's friend and she is bringing up him as her own son. But jealous Oberon, at any cost, wants to take this boy from his wife to make him his slave.

Now Oberon, with the help of Puck, plans to take this boy. So, he orders Puck to put magical juice into Titania's eyes while the queen is asleep, and when she opens her eyes, she will fall in love with the first things, even with a lion, a bear, a monkey, or an ape. To fulfil the king's order, he goes to search for such herbs (magical juice) around the jungle. At that time, Oberon was waiting for him. In the meantime, Oberon overhears Demetrius complaining to Helena for following him because he is by heart in love with Hermia. In the meantime, Demetrius and Hermia also enter the woods. Actually, Oberon feels great pity for Helena's condition because she is being hated by Demetrius. So when Puck arrives, taking that love juice flower, Oberon orders Puck to drop some juice in Demetrius's eyes while he is asleep, and after opening his eyes, he will see Helena and immediately love her. Puck promises to do this properly.

Scene II

Titania sleeps, and Oberon puts that drop of love juice in her eyes. On the other hand, Lysander and Hermia have forgotten the way and are lost in the woods. They are tired and about to go to sleep in the forest. Hermia requests that Lysander sleep separately, saying they are still unmarried. Now Hermia dreams of a serpent eating her. Now Puck arrives and mistakenly puts that love juice in Lysander's eyes. Then Puck departs.

Demetrius and Helena are quarrelling in the woods. In a rage, Helena walks alone in the forest. While walking, she suddenly sees Lysander sleeping on the forest ground and wakes him up. Then Lysander wakes up, and due to that love juice effect, he expresses his love to her. Helena is surprised and later becomes angry with Lysander. She leaves him, but he follows her. Now that Hermia has also woken up and found herself alone, she goes to search for Lysander.

 

Act III, Scene I

Many people, like carpenters, tinkers, etc., arrive in the forest to rehearse their drama. But Puck, seeing them in the forest, wants to give them trouble. So, he catches Bottom and transforms his head into an ass head. Finally, ass-headed Bottom reaches towards the queen, and as she wakes up, she immediately falls in love with ass-headed Bottom.

 

Scene II

Puck informs Oberon that Titania is in love with an animal-headed man.

Now, Oberon, seeing and overhearing the lovers' quarrel, realises Puck made a mistake because Oberon has ordered Puck to put love juice into Demetrius' eyes but not on Lysander. Hermia quarrels with Demetrius because she thinks that Demetrius killed Lysander. Then she promises not to see Demetrius' face again. Demetrius does not try to show his innocence and even stops following her, thinking that it is useless because she is in a bad temper. After that, Demetrius feels sleepy and falls asleep. Then Oberon orders Puck to bring Helena in front of sleeping Demetrius. Now Puck puts magic juice in his eyes.

Demetrius awakes and sees Helena. Then he immediately confesses his love for her. On the other hand, Lysandér is also confessing his love to Helena. Here comes a great problem for Helena because she was loved by both men. Later, Demetrius and Lysander fight with a sword for the sake of Helena, but no one harms each other because Puck has drawn a magical circle in which they will not get any wounds from each other. Then Oberon orders Puck to remove the effect of juice from Lysander's eyes but not to remove that magical juice from Demetrius's eyes. Now Puck properly handles the king's order and removes the love juice from Lysander's eyes. Then Lysander immediately confesses his love for Hermia. Here appears a happy situation because two lovers and beloveds reunite.

 

Act IV, Scene I

In this scene, Titania is also released from the magical juice, and she surrenders the Indian boy to the king. The bottom is also relieved from the ass's head. Then Oberon tells Titania the story of young lovers at midnight.

Similarly, while searching for those lovers, Theseus, Hippolyta, and Egeus also come into the forest and find them (Demetrius, Lysander, Helena, and Hermia) asleep. They wake them up and hear their love story. After listening to their words, Duke gives his consent to get married. Finally, he announces that three weddings will take place simultaneously.

Scene II

Bottom's friends are searching for him to perform the play. They finally find him and hurriedly go to the palace to perform the play.

 

Act V, scene 1

Duke's wedding festivities start. Bottom and his company perform their most lamentable comedy...' Through their performances, the Duke and Duchess also become happy. In such a situation, Oberon, Titania, and Puck also arrive to offer their blessings to the Duke and Duchess.

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