Some of the most interesting female characters in Shakespeare's writing are Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Viola and Olivia in Twelfth Night, and Gertrude, the Queen of Denmark and Hamlet's mother, in Hamlet. ... In A Midsummer Night's Dream, the reader recognizes right away that Hermia is not ordinary woman. ... Until this early point in the play, Hermia is an admirable and even heroic female figure, especially for the feminist reader, for both in this and other examples from A Midsummer Night's Dream she has succeeded in breaking the rigid mold of social conven...

• Word Count: 2208
• Approx Pages: 9
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Graduate