Comparing Determination In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo And

A poem by Shashikant Nishant Sharma titled “Determination for Success” reads, “Nothing is impossible if you wish/every hurdle can be moved if you push” (Sharma). The author states that anyone can accomplish anything as long as you believe in yourself. Through boldness and determination, one can persevere through any hardship. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, and Hamlet, Shakespeare gives his audience a picture of his ideal woman, conveying his admiration for boldness, determination, and beauty.
In Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Juliet and Hermia both demonstrate their boldness when they disobey their father’s wishes and run away with their forbidden loves. Not only does Juliet run away with Romeo, but she also proposes to him herself saying, “If that thy bent of love be honorable, / Thy purpose marriage, send me word tomorrow” (Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet). Typically, it is the man’s responsibility to propose to the woman, but Shakespeare chose to make Juliet the dominant one in this relationship. In addition to merely proposing marriage, Juliet agrees to marry him in secret, as she knows it is against her father’s will to marry a Montague. Similarly, Hermia defies her father when she agrees to escape to the forest with Lysander.

Both Hermia and Juliet do whatever it takes to be with their loves, despite the fact that they could face death.

When Hermia’s father, Egeus, consults Theseus, the king of Athens about her duties, the two men present Hermia with two options: marry Demetrius or enter into a nunnery. Hermia is not afraid to strike back saying, “So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,/Ere I will yield my virgin patent up/Unto his lordship, whose unwishèd yoke/My soul consents not to give sovereignty” (Shakespeare, A Midsummer Nights Dream). She informs the two men that she would rather die than give up her virginity to someone she didn’t love, thus demonstrating her determination and commitment in marrying her true love,

Lysander.
In Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare puts an emphasis on each women’s beauty. Specifically in Hamlet, Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother, describes her as pretty when recounting her death saying, “When down her weedy trophies and herself/Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,/And, mermaid-like awhile they bore her up” (Shakespeare, Hamlet). Ophelia’s death was filled with pretty song and lovely flowers; even her clothes made her look like a mermaid as she slowly floated down beneath the river, thus conveying Shakespeare’s admiration for a beautiful woman.
The women presented in Shakespeare’s comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as well as his tragedies, Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet, share the same attributes of boldness, determination, and beauty, expressing Shakespeare’s respect for women who possess these qualities. Shakespeare makes a point of developing the women’s characters so that the audience can see the different layers of their personalities. Instead of only giving his women characters the quality of beauty, he adds other characteristics, which allows the women to have the opportunity to make a strong effect on the plot.