Weak or Strong? How does Shakespeare portray his female characters in "A Mid-Summer Nights Dream"

Authors Avatar

Weak or Strong? How does Shakespeare portray his female characters in “A Mid-Summer Nights Dream”

“The story shall be changed.  Apollo flies and Daphe holds the chase.”

In the Athenian setting of “A Mid-Summer Nights Dream”, women play an important role.  The position women play is both strong and weak, and I will be discussing these matters.

Compared to the English society in Shakespearean times, the female characters behaviour in “A Mid-Summer Nights Dream” would have been unconventional.  The only exception in those days would have been Queen Elizabeth because she was very powerful even though she was a woman. This would have affected how Shakespeare portrayed women in “A Mid-Summer Nights Dream”. Women would have been made to look weak but their strength would be judged by their social position.

The two women I am going to focus on closely are a Titania, queen of the fairies and the other Helena, a lover.  At this point I would say Titania seems the stronger but it may not be as straight forward as this.

Join now!

Titania had a high social position as queen, also commanding the fairies.  With the aid of her fairies e.g. “fairies be gone”, she has quite a powerful force.  This alone is not all of Titania’s strengths, during the play she is persistently asked by Oberon for the possession of her young Indian boy but strongly refuses, “I will not part with him”.  This strength of Titania, denying Oberon of the Indian boy, shows her power over him.  This also shows the strength of her loyalty to her friend, mother of the Indian boy, to keep her promise of looking ...

This is a preview of the whole essay