Helwan University

Faculty of Arts
English Department, Literature Section

Gender Discrimination in William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer

Night’s Dream.

A Research
Submitted to the English Department, Faculty of Arts
By
Nourhan Mohamed Abdelrahman
Mennatallah Ehab Farouk
Mohamed Ahmed khalaf
Ahmed Ammar Hamed
Shorouk Ali Esmail

Under The Supervision of

Professor Samia Abou Alam

Professor of Literature,
English Department,
Faculty of Arts – Helwan University.

Nov, 2022
 Abstract

Many centuries ago, people suffered from discrimination in its different forms.
Women, however, suffered more than men because there was a kind of
discrimination which was exercised only on women. This type of discrimination
was known as “gender discrimination”. This means that women were oppressed,
marginalized, and humiliated because of their gender. Furthermore, they were
deprived of their simplest and most basic rights. Hence, women were not allowed
to educate, work, vote, or even express their opinions or desires. This issue was
very prominent and was reflected in more than one literary work. The research
aims to tackle William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream using this
feminist approach.

Keywords: Gender discrimination, William Shakespeare, A Midsummer

Night’s Dream, and feminist approach.

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 Table of Content

Abstract……………………………………………………………………………..1
Introduction………………………………………………………………………...3
Chapter 1: plot Summary of A Midsummer Night’s Dream……………………….4
Chapter 2: The Main characters and Themes in the Play…………………………..6
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………...10
Works Cited…………………………………………………………………….....11

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 Introduction

In 1873, Charles Fourier originated the term of “feminism” . Fourier defined

feminism as the belief that women should not be treated less favourably or
unequally just because they are female. Feminism consists of three waves. First
wave feminism is dealing with property rights and the right to vote; second wave
feminism is focusing on equality and anti-discrimination, and third wave feminism
is focusing on reproductive rights for women; feminist advocated for women’s
right to make a basic right to have access to birth control and abortion. Every wave
of the three waves has a certain purpose. And each wave has a different motives
behind it. In this essay, the focus will be on the second waves and its motive. Many
novelists and playwrights reflected in their literary works how women were
oppressed and humiliated. Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream one of the
plays which portrayed who men were superior to women and have control over
them and how people and society, at that time, saw that such a normal system.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of Shakespeare’s comedies assumed to be

written between 1590-1597. It can be considered as one of the comedies because it
is full of silly funny things and also happy ending. However, it reflects very
prominent issues which existed at that time, such as gender discrimination. In A
Midsummer Night’s Dream, gender discrimination can be seen through Athens’
laws and rules which revere men and humiliate women. At that time, men had a
higher position than women; men mostly decided everything for women, for
example men determined what was allowed and forbidden for women to do. In
family, the father has the highest position. As a result, he can forced his daughter
to do things that she doesn’t want to do and forbid her to do things which she
desires to do since the low has been made for only men’s benefit (Winarti and
Kusuma).

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 Chapter 1

Plot summary.

The play starts with the planning for the marriage of Theseus the duke of Athens
and Hippolyta the queen of Amazons. Then Egeus an Athenian nobleman, enters
the court with his daughter Hermia and two young men Lysander and Demetrius.
Egeus wishes that his daughter will marry Demetrius but she refused because she
loves Lysander. Egeus enraged because his daughter refuses to obey him, so he ask
the duke for the full penalty of law against Hermia if she still refuses to obey his
father's will. Theseus tells Hermia that she will be sent to convent or even executed
if she didn't accept to marry Demetrius as her father wishes. He gives her until his
wedding to rethink again. Hermia and Lysander plan to escape and marry in his
aunt's home. Hermia reveals their plan to Helena who was once engaged to
Demetrius and still trying to regain his love after he left her when he saw Hermia.
She tells him about the whole plan, desperately hopping he will return to her.
Demetrius goes into the woods and Helena chased him. In this woods besides the
four Athenian lovers there were Oberon the king of fairies, Tatiana his wife, a band
of fairies and a band of Athenian craftsmen. The band of Athenian craftsmen were
rehearsing for their play that they hope to perform on the duke's wedding. Oberon
and his wife Tatiana who is recently come back from India were fighting over an
Indian prince. Oberon wants to make him a knight and Tatiana refuses to give him
up to Oberon. That's why Oberon commanded his merry servant Puck to get him
the magical flower. The one that have Cupid's power. By putting it's juice in a
sleeping person's eyelid, that person will fall in love with the first thing his or her
eyes lay on. He commanded Puck to use the magical potion on Tatiana so she will
fall in love with any animal she will see after waking up and he will be able to
make her gives him the Indian boy. He happen to see how rude Demetrius is to
Helena and how desperate she is to make him love her once again. As a result of
what he saw he commanded Puck to use the potion also on the Athenian young
man. Puck ran into Lysander and Hermia instead Demetrius and Helena. They
were sleeping so he used the magic potion on Lysander. After Lysander Wake up
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 he see Helena and immediately falls in love with her. He chases her and abandon
Hermia in the woods. Puck's try to fix his mistake and spread the love potion in
Demetrius eyes. now both of them are in love with Helena who thinks they are
mocking her. Hermia sees her lover Lysander ready to fight Demetrius for Helen.
That makes her so jealous that she challenge Helena to a fight. Puck separated the
two young men in the woods by mimicking their voices. They all become
exhausted and fall asleep. Puck also put the love potion in Tatiana 's eyes so when
she wake up she fall in love with Bottom. Bottom is one of the craftsmen and the
dumbest one of them. Puck turned his head into donkey's head previously.
Eventually Oberon takes the young boy, puck spread the love potion in Lysander's
eyes and by the morning all the chaos was gone. In the morning Theseus and
Hippolyta find the four lovers and take them back to Athens with them to be
married. Demetrius now loves Helena once again and Lysander loves hermia. After
the marriage the craftsmen started to perform their play. Then the lovers go to bed.
Only Puck who remains on stage and askes the audience to remember the play as it
had all been a dream.

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 Chapter 2
 Characters.

In William Shakespeare's comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the male

characters including Egeus, Oberon, and Theseus, are insecure about females.
They feel the need to be obeyed by their female counterparts. The female
characters are insecure too but they resist to obey males who control their lives.

Hermia
Hermia is a young beautiful woman from Athens. She falls in love with Lysander
but her father Egus refused to make her marry him. Instead he commands her to
marry Demetrius. She refused her father's command on marry him with confidence
and planned to escape with her lover Lysander. But Hermia lost her confidence
when her beloved one Lysander left her while she was sleeping to go over Helena
when he accidentally bewitched by love potion. Hermia still have her own
insecurities, she is insecure about her height because she's short compared to
Helena. Despite her escape from her father to marry Lysander, she shows respect
for the rules propriety. That appeared when she insisted to sleep apart from her
lover Lysander (Rockefeller).
Helena
Helena is a friend of Hermia; she's a young girl from Athens who was betrothed to
Demetrius. He left her for her friend Hermia but she remains desperately in love
with him. When Lysander and Demetrius fall in love with her as a result to love
potion she didn't believe them, that event in the play shows her inferiority complex.
She didn't believe for a minute that they're truly love her but instead of that she
thought they're making fun of her just to laugh. Helena thinks that her own
fearfulness is attractive. Helena is fully aware of propriety's rules but she is willing
to break it just so she can achieve her love (Rockefeller).
Lysander
He is a young man from Athens who is in love with Hermia. Her father accused
him for “bewitching the bosom of [his] child” and ignores that she's engaged to
another man. Lysander didn't want to give up on his love so he planned to escape
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 from Athens with his beloved Helena. However, he couldn't stand a chance In
front of love potion. A puck accidentally bewitched him with love potion. As a
result of that he fall in love with Helena and tried to prove himself to her. For his
love for Helena he was willing to dual Demetrius for her (Rockefeller).
Demetrius
He is a young man from Athens who was betrothed to Helena first. But He left her
to chase her friend Hermia. Demetrius can be brash, rude, and even violent as he
threatened Helena and insulted her. He even tried to provoke Lysander into a fight.
Demetrius originally love Helena and he returned to love her again by the end of
the play but his love only rekindled by magic (Rockefeller).
Puck
Puck is a mischievous spirit and Oberon merry jester. Puck is actually his servant
but he is unable and unwilling to obey his master Oberon. He represent the force of
chaos in the play, of course he is no match comparing of the power of chaos
however his acts to use love potion to help the Athens lovers achieve their love
lead to the central misunderstandings on the play. Even when he tried to fix his
mistakes he causes even more chaos. His failed to control fate leads to more events
in the play (Rockefeller).
Oberon
Oberon is the king of fairies and the husband of Tatiana. Oberon has the same
insecurities as the human characters in the play. He shows jealousy from Tatiana’s
adoption and love for the young Indian boy. He demands obedience from his wife
but she refused to give the young boy to him. When she didn't obey him he
commanded puck to search for specific flower to use its love potion to make
Tatiana fall in love with some animal just to force her to obey him. Oberon shows
kindness through the play, as when he sympathized with Helena's desperate love
and ordered puck to help her with love potion. However this caused chaos and lead
to great misunderstandings (Rockefeller).
Tatiana
Tatiana is the queen of fairies and the wife of Oberon. Tatiana just returned from a
trip to India. She adopted her friend's son after she died while give him birth. She
gave him home and love but that made Oberon so jealous that he told her to give
up the child to him. She refused but Tatiana is no match compared to a love potion.
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 As a result for the love potion she fall in love with bottom whose head turned into
donkey's head. However, we didn't witnessed her giving up the young boy to
Oberon but he said that she did (Rockefeller).
Theseus
Theseus is the king of Athens. The play started with him and Hippolyta his pride
the queen of amazons, which is a society of warlike women who traditionally are a
threat to the patriarchal society. He tells her that he “woo’d [her] with the sword,”.
He only appears in the beginning of the play and in it's end. However as a king he
is the counterpart of the king of fairies Oberon. That's shows the contrast between
humans and fairies throughout the play (Rockefeller).
Hippolyta
Hippolyta is the queen of amazons and Theseus's pride. After Theseus defeated the
amazons this powerful tribe that led by females warriors, Theseus decided to marry
Hippolyta the queen of amazons. As their queen Hippolyta represent a great threat
to the patriarchal society. The play started with the marriage of Theseus and
Hippolyta which represents the victory of "order" (patriarchal society) over
"chaos" (the Amazons). But this is didn't last long as it disturbed by Hermia's
disobedience to her father (Rockefeller).
Egeus
Egeus is the father of Hermia. He is the typical patriarchal father at that age. At the
beginning of the play he showed furious because his own daughter refused to obey
him and marry the man he chose for her which is Demetrius. He went to the king
of Athens to make him apply the law to his daughter. He don't care if she died what
only matters is to obey him. Egeus as the rest of the characters has his insecurities
and need to feel obeyed by his daughter. There is no difference between Lysander
and Demetrius but he just craving obedience from his daughter (Rockefeller).
Bottom
Bottom is one of the actors that will perform a play in Theseus and Hippolyta's
wedding. He is the foolish character in the play and as it known the foolish one
always faces troubles. He get caught in the middle of the drama between Taitania
and Oberon. As Oberon's order said to make Tatiana fall in love with any animal to
make her obey him, puck chooses bottom to be that animal and turn his head to
donkey's head (Rockefeller).

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  Themes.
This paper aims to discuss the most crucial themes in the play which are gender
discrimination, love, and magic.
Gender discrimination
This research revolves around this theme. This theme can be seen when Egeus
,Helena’s father, refuses Lysander as a husband to his daughter, and he wants to
give her to another man, Demetrius, because Egeus sees that he is better than
Lysander. However, he knows that his daughter loves Lysander and wants to get
married to him as well as she hates Demetrius. This reflects how the society , at
that time, was a patriarchal one and how women were humiliated, oppressed, and
marginalized .
love
the theme of love out of balance romantic scenarios in which a disparity or
inequality obstructs a relationship’s harmony often explores the issue of love’s
difficulty. The four young Athenians’ asymmetrical love is the best example of this
imbalance: Hermia loves Lysander, Lysander loves Hermia, Helena loves
Demetrius, and Demetrius prefers Hermia to Helena. This simple numerical
imbalance occurs when two men have feelings for the same woman, leaving one
with too many suitors and the other with too few. The drama has a good chance
of having a conventional resolution because the plot is in many ways motivated
by a search for interior harmony; hence, when the lovers’ conflict is resolved into
symmetrical pairs, the conventional happy ending occurs(SparkNotes Editors).
Magic
The theme of magic is another key component of A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s
amazing atmosphere is the fairies’ magic, which causes many of the play’s most
absurd and amusing events. Shakespeare makes use of magic to both illustrate the
almost supernatural power of love (represented by the love potion) and to build a
fantastical universe. Although magic can be misused to wreak havoc, as when
Puck accidentally administers the love potion to Lysander’s eyelids, magic
ultimately helps to ease the play’s tensions by re-establishing the balance of love
among the four young Athenian characters. Furthermore, the simplicity with which
Puck employs magic for his own purposes—as when he transforms Bottom’s head
into an ass and imitates the voices of Lysander and Demetrius—stands in contrast
to the complexity(Wikipedia Editors). 9
 Conclusion

To conclude, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of the literary

works which shows how women suffered from marginalization
and oppression at that time. It also presents Hermia as a feminist
character who manages to keep her love and get marry to her
beloved regardless her father’s rejection and refusal.

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 Work Cited

Rockefeller, Lily. “'A Midsummer Night's Dream' Characters: Descriptions and

Analysis.” ThoughtCo, ThoughtCo, 30 Apr. 2019,
www.thoughtco.com/midsummer-nights-dream-characters-4628367.

Sparknotes Editors. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream themes”. SparkNotes.com,

2005,www.sparknotes.com/Shakespeare/msnd/themes/

“William Shakespeare”. Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 18 Nov. 2022,

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare.

Winarti, Winarti, and Ana Hening Kusuma. “Women Struggle in ‘A Midsummer

Night’s Dream’ : De Beauvoir’s Feminism Perspective”. Leksema: Jurnal
Bahasa Dan Sastra, vol. 2, no. 2,2017, pp. 113-13., doi:1.22515/ljbs.v2i2.929.

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