At the beginning, Hermia is in love with Lysander and Lysander loves Hermia. Unfortunately, Egeus, Hermia's father, wishes her to marry Demetrius. Demetrius is also in love with Hermia. The disagreement is brought before the Duke, Theseus. He tells Hermia that she must follow her father’s wish or else she is to be put to death or sent to a nunnery.
Hermia's best friend is in love with Demetrius, but Demetrius is not interested. Helena is upset by the fact no one loves her and her friend has two people in love with her. After the discussion with Theseus, Lysander and Hermia plot to run-away from Athens to escape the law. Desperate to gain respect from Demetrius, Helena tells him about the plot. However, Helena's plan backfires and Demetrius leaves to find them and kill Lysander. Helena follows them into the woods.
Helena pursues Demetrius through the woods, but he only threatens to harm her if she doesn't leave him alone. Unknown the pair of them, Oberon, King of the Fairies observes how Demetrius treats Helena and is upset by it. At this point, Oberon decides to help Helena with a little Fairy magic. Oberon orders his helper, Puck, to find a special flower, which contains a magical juice. The juice is placed in the eyes of a sleeping person and the first creature they see upon awakening, they fall instantly in love with.
"…A sweet Athenian lady is in love with a disdainful youth. Anoint his eyes, but do it when the next thing he espies may be the lady...”
Here Shakespeare introduces the Fairies to the audience and what magical things they intend to do to help Helena. This is the beginning of the twisting plot. In the woods, Hermia and Lysander decide to sleep, whilst sleeping Puck mistakes Lysander for Demetrius and puts the juice in his eyes.
“Who is here? Weeds of Athens he doth wear. This is he, my master said, despised the Athenian maid…"
Here, the audience begins to see what is going to happen and how mischievous Puck can be.
Towards the end of the scene, disaster strikes when Helena finds Lysander, seemingly sleeping on his own. She wakes him and he falls wildly in love with her. Helena, finding it difficult to believe, runs away. Lysander pursues her leaving Hermia all alone. As Hermia sits about wondering what has come of Lysander, Demetrius walks into the clearing and she then believes that he has killed Lysander. As they argue, Oberon and Puck watch and realise the mistake Puck has made.
"This is the woman, but not the man."
Here, Shakespeare is allowing the audience to realise Puck's mistake and the potential consequences.
Demetrius soon gets bored with arguing and settles down to go to sleep, leaving Hermia to wonder in the woods looking for Lysander. To try and undo what the Fairies have done, Puck applies the love juice into Demetrius' eyes. By doing this Shakespeare's audience begin to understand how confusing things can get, but find it amusing as the lovers are completely unaware of what is happening to them.
Whilst this is all going on, Lysander is trying to proclaim his love for her is true. As he chases her through the woods, they come across Demetrius who is sleeping. As he wakes, he sees Helena and he too falls in love with her. This makes the plot of A Midsummer Night's Dream very confusing indeed. Helena starts to get confused as to why the two men have suddenly fallen in love with her and begins to feel it is some cruel trick led by Hermia.
She confronts Hermia who defends herself and it all becomes one very big heated argument. As it is going on, Oberon and Puck are watching and Oberon forces Puck to put things right.
Puck makes himself invisible and leads Lysander and Demetrius away. Taking Lysander back to Hermia and Demetrius to Helena, he puts the juice into Lysander's eyes as he sleeps to ensure he is back with his one true love, Hermia.
At the beginning of the play we witness a common argument between father and daughter about marriage. In this case, it involves Hermia and Egeus. Egeus wishes he daughter to marry Demetrius,
"Stand forth Demetrius. My noble lord, this man hath my consent to marry her."
When Hermia refuses, Egeus seeks the advice of the Duke, Theseus, who says that it is the law that she must obey her father's wishes and marry Demetrius,
"To you your father should be as a god."
He also accuses Lysander of falsely loving Hermia and gaining her love so that she goes against her father,
"Stand forth Lysander. And my gracious duke, this man hath bewitched the bosom of my child."
However, Hermia is adamant that she won't marry Demetrius, and even after threats of death or being sent to a nunnery, she still vows to run-away to be with Lysander. She says that Lysander is just a good a man as Demetrius,
"I would my father looked but with my eyes."
Hermia then pleads with the Duke,
"Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke my soul consents not to give sovereignty."
This argument seen at the beginning of A Midsummer Night's Dream can be seen throughout the world today. Many parents wish to choose whom their child marries or may just disapprove of their child's choice of partner. In many foreign countries it is still the law for a daughter to be arranged to marry someone selected by their father, and it is common enough to see that, if they refuse, they will die.
In the play we can clearly see that Egeus represents Age, "Full of vexation come I, with complaint against, my daughter Hermia.” and Hermia represents Youth, "So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord, ere I will yield my virgin patent up."
Just as almost any love story, it all turns out all right, with Hermia having her wish to marry Lysander granted to her by Theseus. This happens mainly due to the help of the Fairies who, in the end, get Demetrius to fall in love with Helena.
I feel that Theseus decided to overrule Egeus because he felt that I wasn't right to force to people to marry each other who didn't love each other and also it was his wedding day and he probably would have felt it right to let the lover's make their own decisions. I believe that I modern audience would feel this to be the right thing do and therefore be all right with it. However, an audience in Shakespeare times would have probably been very shocked to see a young girl go against the wishes of her father as it was not allowed in Elizabethan times.
When we first meet Hermia in the play, she is wildly in love with Lysander and therefore is very passionate but distraught about the fact that her father wants her to marry Demetrius.
