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Women In A Midsummer Night's Dream

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In modern times, women are able to hold great influence over many people and show their proof of power as leaders. In the play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare, characters such as these do exist, but are overshadowed by even greater influence. In this play, Shakespeare portrays women as formidable strongholds against men with great power behind the scenes using characters such as Hermia, Hippolyta, and Titania. To begin with, Hermia is a character that holds power, but is often disregarded due to the high reputation of Egeus and Hermia’s position as his daughter. When Egeus was complaining to Theseus about Lysander and Hermia’s relationship, he says, “As she is mine, I may dispose of her” (1.1.42). This shows that Hermia …show more content…

Oberon and Titania get into an argument over an Indian boy because Oberon wants to use the boy as a servant but Titania wants to raise him as her own child. Titania tells Oberon that she is not afraid of Oberon and that she is just as powerful as Oberon. To get Titania to do what he wants, Oberon places a love juice that is said to “make or man or woman madly dote / upon the next live creature that it sees” (2.1.171-172). Titania then appears to be irrelevant and weak because she falls in love with a man that has the head of an ass, humiliating Titania and tainting her image in the eyes of the audience. Her title as Fairy Queen holds no weight and she is merely seen as a woman in love with an ass. Even though she appears to be weak, Titania does hold power as she is the Queen of the Fairies and may possibly be equal to Oberon in terms of power and influence. In the end, Hermia gets wins her fight for love and gets approval from Theseus, but Hippolyta’s image stays tainted and does not get her honor as the Queen of Amazons back. Titania as well does not remember anything about what has happened to her, and is oblivious to the fact that she looked weak and ridiculous falling in love with an ass. She also gets the love potion put on her eyelids again for a second time, but instead falls in love with Oberon and does not get any say as to what happens

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