A Midsummer Night's Dream, by William Shakespeare

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Recommended: A critical analysis of the characters of the midsummer night dream

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” begins as many typical romantic stories. Two people are in love; in this case, Hermia and Lysander. But an obstacle stands in their way; in this case, Hermia’s father who wants Hermia to marry Demetrius. However, this is where this play begins to differ from all others. Shakespeare leads four crossed lovers, Hermia, Helena, Demetrius, and Lysander, through a winding path that somehow magically ends with everyone happily getting married. The pivotal aspect of this play is Shakespeare’s development of the different characters. In the drama enactment; a character’s appearance, personality, and character are used together to help unfold the story. Characters convey many different kinds of information through an art form called characterization. In the play, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” William Shakespeare does an exceptional job of describing each of the four young lovers. Each one of the characters was given personality, whether distinct or vague, that set them apart from the other characters in the play. Through the actions of the different antagonists, Shakespeare reveals to the audience the different and distinct aspects of each character, including each character’s physical appearances, personality, and specific traits. One aspect that causes the four characters to differ is their physical appearance. While the author Shakespeare makes the appearance of Lysander and Demetrius having virtually indistinguishable physical and monetary figures, he comparatively makes the appearances of Hermia and Helena quite distinguishable, their names being the only thing that is remotely being similar between the two of them. Hermia’s physical appearance is described as having “blessed and attractive eyes,” (ACT ... ... middle of paper ... ...the magical flower. While some aspects of these four characters are similar to another, Shakespeare skillfully managed to make each personality vaguely different from the others. For example, while he suggests that Hermia and Helena are similar in appearance, the women are distinctly different from each other because Hermia is more confident and borders on rebellious, while Helena is very unsure to the point of paranoia. Similarly, while Lysander and Demetrius are similar in appearance and possibly some personality traits, they are distinctly different because Demetrius is a jerk and Lysander is a romantic. These are only some of the ways that Shakespeare used to create unique characters. Further, the complete distinction between the four lovers stems only from Shakespeare’s ability to contrast the characters physical appearance, personality, and character traits.

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