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Females role in societies
Literary analysis on a midsummer nights dream
Shakespeare history plays
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Male Domination in A MIdsummer Nights Dream
Male Domination
For many centuries women have been oppressed, and treated like second-class citizens. Over the years, women have earned more rights and have been recognized as equals to men. Although they have earned many things, there are still some signs of them being oppressed by societies that are still mainly dominated by men. The period when Queen Elizabeth was ruling over England was no different. She was a big supporter of William Shakespeare and his acting company. William Shakespeare was one of the first feminist writers. William Shakespeare wrote the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The women in the play have no power and there is nothing they can do. The men use their power to control the women and almost mess up many people’s lives. In the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, male domination is displayed in the relationships, Theseus winning Hippolyta, Egeus controlling Hermia, and Oberon tricking Titania.
Theseus won Hippolyta in battle and doesn’t care about her feelings. Theseus is the Duke of Athens and is the governing power of all the humans in the play. Hippolyta was the Queen of the Amazons, but was then conquered by Theseus and his army.
“Hippolyta I wooed thee with my sword,
And won thy love, doing thee injuries;
But I will wed thee in another key,
With pomp, with triumph, and with reveling.” (1.1.16-19)
Theseus won her in death and destru...
Sometimes, when a person becomes controlling, he can lead others down a path to destruction and failure. Control is a huge theme in A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare. Inside the play, certain characters try to make other characters do what he or she wants, and it often ends poorly. One example of this is Nick Bottom, a weaver who is a part of the players performing the play “Pyramus and Thisbe”. He often tries to be controlling by stepping into play other’s parts, and, the results don’t turn out the way he and the others quite expected.
Many people believe that control is possible until it comes into play and it doesn’t work out. Control is a big deal in A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare. Oberon tries to control Demetrius and Lysander tries to control Helena. Control is not possible because it’s unpredictable and you can’t control love.
The time period and setting in which this play is written causes the characters to crave control that affects the fate of others. Shakespeare writes this play during the time period of the mid-1500s to the early 1600s. The hierarchy of power during this time favors men more than women. Similarly, women are strictly valued as property rather than equal counterparts to men. England’s societal pyramid during this time period is evident in A Midsummer’s Night Dream as Egeus threatens to end his daughter’s life unless she complies with his wishes to marry a man she does not love:
In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, there are many traces of lenses. The lens that I chose to explain is the gender lens. Since this is a long time ago, women weren’t treated the same as men. Women were treated as items, as property. Men were the rulers of everything, they made the big choices. Hermia was treated as property that Demetrius wanted, even though Lysander already “owned” and Egeus (Hermia’s father) was lending out to people. It seems like a sexist world back then.
In the story, the supreme ruler of Athens, Thesius ends up marrying Hippolyta, the Queen of the Jungle. However, during the whole story, Hippolyta never throughly discusses her feelings and ideas about the marriage. She acts as if she has no choice but to marry Thesius. This can be proven by examining Hippolyta's position in the relationship between herself and Thesius. Hippolyta was captured by Thesius during battle and Thesius intimidates Hippolyta into marrying him since he is a supreme ruler and she was defeated by him. Thesius reveals that he capture Hippolyta in battle in the following quote, "I wood thee by my sword/ And won thy love doing thee injuries" (Act I, Pg 7). The above quote and the fact that Hippolyta never discusses her feelings about the wedding leads the re...
Some of the most prominent themes in A Midsummer Night’s Dream are the omnipresence of love and desire and the tendencies of characters to manifest their defining traits. Helena and Hermia are two perfect examples of this. Hermia is the lover, and Helena the desirer, and both thrive off of their obsessions. In fact, both women are so tied to these traits that when they are taken away, their characters deflate and fall static.
William Shakespeare’s writings are famous for containing timeless, universal themes. A particular theme that is explored frequently in his writings is the relationship between men and women. A Midsummer Night’s Dream contains a multitude of couplings, which are often attributed to the fairies in the play. Each of these pairings has positive and negative aspects, however, some relationships are more ideal than others. From A Midsummer Night’s Dream the optimal pairings are Lysander and Hermia, Demetrius and Helena, and Oberon and Titania; while the less desirable pairings are Theseus and Hippolyta, Hermia and Demetrius, Lysander and Helena, and Titania and Bottom. Throughout A Midsummer
Love is a powerful emotion, capable of turning reasonable people into fools. Out of love, ridiculous emotions arise, like jealousy and desperation. Love can shield us from the truth, narrowing a perspective to solely what the lover wants to see. Though beautiful and inspiring when requited, a love unreturned can be devastating and maddening. In his play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare comically explores the flaws and suffering of lovers. Four young Athenians: Demetrius, Lysander, Hermia, and Helena, are confronted by love’s challenge, one that becomes increasingly difficult with the interference of the fairy world. Through specific word choice and word order, a struggle between lovers is revealed throughout the play. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare uses descriptive diction to emphasize the impact love has on reality and one’s own rationality, and how society’s desperate pursuit to find love can turn even strong individuals into fools.
Theseus and Oberon are both compassionate and understanding towards the young lovers, Hermia and Lysander, and Helena and Demetrius. They are involved in a love triangle that encompasses matters of the law and love. Demetrius intends to marry Hermia, although, she shares a mutual love with Lysander; Helena loves Demetrius, although, he no longer loves her. Theseus, as the Duke of Athens, maintains the laws and standards of Athenian society. He acknowledges “the Ancient privilege of Athens” (I.1.41) that allows Egeus to “dispose of” (I.1.42) Hermia. This law permits Egeus to give his daughter to Demetrius or “to death, according to [the] law” (I.1.44). However, Theseus takes pity on Hermia and gives he...
Women have always been the backbone of human civilization, whether it be in ancient times or even in the modern era. However, they are oppressed and not given the same fundamental, human rights as men, like access to education, leaving this discrimination and sexism to span over prolonged periods of time. Specifically, sexism is seen during the Elizabethan Era of history when William Shakespeare writes his prominent dramatic piece, Macbeth. In Shakespeare’s tragedy, the prevalent theme of sexism is depicted in the play when Lady Macbeth, a character of strength and ambition, is shown as manipulative and inevitably weak when Shakespeare portrays her eventual downfall and suicide. Throughout the world today, the many different forms of sexism
“...So long as men can breathe or eyes can see/So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.” So ends the famous Sonnet 18, possibly Shakespeare’s best-loved sonnet of all. Shakespeare’s fame today comes almost exclusively for his writing that deals with feelings of love. Sonnet 18. Romeo and Juliet. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Hamlet and Ophelia and Antipholus and Luciana and Beatrice and Benedick and Antony and Cleopatra. All these examples of the guy falling in love with the girl and skipping off into the sunset with her. However, new evidence shows that he wrote almost half of his sonnets to a man, including that oft-quoted “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” sonnet. As we look closer and closer at his cross-dressing, male-centric, “fabulous” plays, Shakespeare scholars argue that it’s very possible he swung the other way, or at least been an ally for those who did. Fast forward about four hundred years and we live in a thoroughly(though not yet quite totally) accepting society, with multiple organizations dedicated only to making LGBT kids feel safe in their own community, universally legal gay marriage undoubtedly coming up on the horizon, and non-gender-binary people winning major beauty-centric competitions. The very reason that so much research has been done on Shakespeare’s sexuality is that we accept so many in today’s modern, free spoken society. The majority of today’s society opens and accepts all, and I like to believe that the bard himself strove for a world like this. There are still a few people who still believe that their love-thy-neighbor religion does not apply to those who do not fit within the societal construct of a book written thousands of years ago, but people who have grown to love far overpowe...
During the Elizabethan era women had a status of subordination towards men. They had a role to marry and oblige to their husband’s wishes. Shakespearean literature, especially illustrates how a woman is psychologically and physically lesser to their male counterpart. The play, Othello, uses that aspect in many different ways. From a Feminist lens others are able to vividly examine how women were subjected to blatant inferiority. Being displayed as tools for men to abuse, women were characterized as possessions and submissive; only during the last portion of the play did the power of women take heed.
The general public may also have preferred strength in female characters as a reflection of pride for their beloved monarch who was one of the few highly competent English rulers in spite of her gender and the sexism of the time in which she lived. Regardless of his reasoning for scripting women the way he did, Shakespeare was most certainly an advocate for feminism when he wrote A Midsummer Night's Dream. From the feminist perspective, liberal thinking and open-mindedness like William Shakespeare are welcome to invade our modern literature and lives for the next four hundred years. Works Cited Greene, Lenz, Neely, eds., pp. 113-117
Men overpowering women has always been a present topic in forms of literature since the female characters have been inactive. In Hamlet by William Shakespeare, there are only two female characters that have a valid role in the plotline. In most plays and works of literature back during the Elizabethan Era there were no women in the plays since they could not perform. Even when women are expressed in the play, they do not have a huge role in the play. There was one play that had a main female role and multiple supporting roles, this play was Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.
Men have so much control in this society and Shakespeare has a little bit of a change in the women in his play.