By Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, play by Shakespeare, as the play suggests it has Dream in the title itself. There is much dream in this drama, to begin with we have dream of Hermia who is one of the most strongest and fictional female characters of the play, who loves Lysander but her father is against their love and wanted Hermia to marry Demetrius.

It is not just any dream that is mentioned here but “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, which was a festive time with many associated Pre- Christian ceremonies. There is a saying that if a young virgin spent the night in the forest, she would have a vision or dream of the man she would marry.

Therefore, there is one such dream in the play. After escaping with her lover in forest she saw a Serpent in her dream, who is eating her heart and she calls to Lysander for help who was just standing and watching doing nothing to save her, this was the symbol of betrayal by Lysander that Hermia feel in her dream. When she wakes up, Lysander was not there at all and she convinces herself that she was dreaming and that she dreamt was just a dream. None of this multiple illusion hides the fact that Lysander has already abandoned her for Helena. The dream is like the forest which intensifies horrid things that otherwise hover in the air.

For instances, Helena and Hermia have been friends since childhood and there is no hint of rupture in their friendship. Of course, Hermia’s father Egeus wants Demetrius to marry Hermia, whereas Helena is in love with Demetrius, but even this does not restrain their friendship. It is only in the forest that they quarrel and come close to blows, the only time in any Shakespeare play that women come so close to physical violence against each other. In something similar, Hermia’s dream presages the separation between her and Lysander. She is as frightened by the Serpent as she is by Lysander’s betrayal.

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