At one time the duo was to be wed, but when Demetrius catches sight of Hermia, Helena's childhood friend, he falls madly in love with her. He gets so wrapped up in Hermia's beauty, that he breaks his engagement with Helena and then asks Hermia's father for his daughter's hand. Already an insecure girl, this does nothing for Helena's self-confidence. Distraught by the loss of her beloved, Helena will stop at nothing to get him back. She will do anything to please him, and that is her weakness. Hermia is Helena's beautiful but short best friend. She is madly in love with Lysander, but Egeus, Hermia's father, has promised her to Demetrius, so Lysander and Hermia flee Athens by way of the woods. When Puck puts the love potion on the young people, the two men fall in love with Helena, and Hermia becomes extremely self-conscious. She thinks that Helena has wooed the men with her height. .
As Montrose points out in his essay, the women are in far more control when the men are chasing them, than when they are had. The time period is one in which women are subordinate to men, especially compared to how things are today. Women only change their mind once the men permit them to, and it is only slightly more acceptable for women of upper classes to speak out - even then they generally speak of trivial things. .
Every mishap and adventure in the play has something to do with love, and those that involve the fairies are no exception. These mystical creatures living in the forest are largely responsible for making A Midsummer Night's Dream as humorous as it is. The King of the fairies is Oberon and Titania is his wife. Titania motherly instincts kick in and she becomes very protective of the young Indian boy left in her care by a friend of hers. Oberon is very jealous of the child, and Titania does not help matters when she refuses to part with the boy: "[f]or her sake do I rear up her boy,/ And for her sake I will not part with him- (136-37).