The headstrong and chaotic personalities of the female characters in A Midsummer Night's Dream represent Queen Elizabeth I's resistance to male dominance throughout her reign as a Monarch of England. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare not only composes a simple and thoughtless comedy, but he constructs a social commentary that investigates the various gender roles and explores the inferiority of women in Elizabethan society. In A Midsummer Night's Dream elements of social critique are present in the opening seen with the conflict between Hermia and her father Egeus...

• Word Count: 866
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Transformation in A Midsummer Night's Dream Throughout each of Shakespeare's dramas, the thematic inclusion of mistaken identities, hidden identities, and deceptive identities permeates many of the conflicts between the characters. ... A Midsummer Night's Dream assimilates this concept of transformation with images of vision and appearance, dreams, and that of a fantasy world that augments and characterizes the transformation of a particular character, scene, or the entire play. ... A Midsummer Night's Dream begins with Hermia wishing that her "father look'd...

• Word Count: 1500
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

A woman's virginity, which implies her chastity, is promise that her husband's paternity will never be questioned". ... The preservation of a woman's virginity is a recurring theme in Shakespeare's plays; in A Midsummer Night's Dream, we see Helena make known her love for Demetrius, which of itself is a measure executed almost exclusively by men. ... In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Titania rules and governs the fairies, sometimes in complete independence. ... We see this again in A Midsummer Night's Dream; Hermia is faced with several options: marry Demetr...

• Word Count: 2000
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Puck and Bottom are both very dramatically effective fools in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and we could give a strong argument for either character being the most effective. ... In Act 2 Scene 1, we were introduced to Puck when one of Titania's fairies encountered him and questioned him to conclude that he was "the shrewd and knavish sprite". ...

• Word Count: 975
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate