Shakespeare - A Midsummer Night’s Dream - characters - BBC Bitesize (2024)

All of the characters come from Athens, Greece. The main characters in A Midsummer Night’s Dream can be put into three groups:

• The Fairies
• The Mechanicals
• The Mortals

The Fairies live in the woods and control most of the events in the story through their magic.

The Mechanicals are a group of workers who are trying to rehearse a play in the woods to celebrate Duke Theseus’s wedding. They are truly comic characters, a bit like clowns.

The Mortals are the human characters of the story. Within this group there are four young lovers who find their lives turned upside down by the fairy world in the middle of the night.

We are going to concentrate on the lovers because they are the characters that are involved in the confusion in the woods. Each of the characters has some kind of relationship problem. The play is funny because when the fairies try to fix these problems - the magic just makes things worse.

The lovers are:

• Hermia
• Lysander
• Demetrius
• Helena

Changes in character

Character attributes

• Independent - she knows her own mind and defies her father. She stands up for herself when Duke Theseus suggests that she marries Demetrius.
• Daring - she runs away with Lysander even though the possible consequences are death or life as a nun.
• Virtuous - She makes sure that Lysander lays a little way apart from her when they fall asleep in the woods because they aren’t married yet.
• Fiery - she has a quick temper and Helena has been afraid of her since they were at school.

Friends and enemies

Hermia’s friends are:

• Helena - her best friend, but Helena betrays her by telling Demetrius that she is eloping with Lysander
• Lysander - her boyfriend, but he treats her badly when, under a spell, he falls in love with Helena

Her enemies are:

• Egeus - her father is prepared to have her put to death for disobeying him
• Demetrius - is her best friend’s ex-boyfriend and she’s not a bit interested in him

Changes in character

• Hermia starts out by being loved by both Lysander and Demetrius, but when they both fall in love with Helena because of the spell, she reacts badly and falls out with her best friend Helena.
• She is an independent girl at the beginning of the play who defies her father to run away with Lysander – and she keeps this independent streak, although during the spell she follows Lysander like a puppy.
• Hermia starts by having to leave home to be with her true love, but at the end of the play the Duke allows her to marry Lysander and she stays in Athens.

Changes in character

Character attributes

• Romantic – he promises to marry Hermia in secret if she will run away with him. He offers to kill Demetrius for Helena if she wants him to.
• Persuasive – he easily persuades Hermia to run away. He tries to persuade her to sleep close to him.
• Dismissive – he is mean to Hermia when the potion makes him fall in love with Helena. He forgets her and leaves her in possible danger in the woods at midnight.

Friends and enemies

Lysander is friends with:

• Hermia - his girlfriend

His enemies are:

• Egeus - who won’t let him marry Hermia
• *Demetrius- - who is trying to steal his girl

Character changes

• Lysander changes from being so besotted with Hermia that he will risk everything for her, to being in love with Helena and hating Hermia.
• He is very considerate to Hermia at the beginning, agreeing to sleep a little way away from her in the forest, but under the spell he forgets about her and leaves her in danger.
• Finally he changes back to loving Hermia, forgetting everything that happened in the forest.

Changes in character

Character attributes

• Arrogant – he wants to marry Hermia no matter what her opinions are on the matter.
• Stubborn – he searches throughout the night for Hermia in the dark woods.
• Unpredictable – long ago, he was in love with Helena. Then he fancied Hermia. Then he woke up and realised that he had been in love with Helena all along… with a little help from fairy magic.

Friends and enemies

Demetrius’ friends are:

• Egeus – who wants him to marry Hermia
• Duke Theseus - the Duke of Athens
• Helena - his friend, even though at the beginning, he’d rather she wasn’t

He is enemies with:

• Lysander – his rival
• Hermia – she hates him, even though he loves her
• Helena - he hates her, even though she loves him

Character changes

• In the beginning Demetrius is not a likeable character. He is arrogant and stubborn. However, he ends up as one of the main romantic characters in the play.
• In the middle Demetrius falls back in love with Helena, under the love spell, changing his mind about who he wants to marry.
• At the end Demetrius finally realises that he is actually in love with Helena. But he doesn’t remember the spell. He’s not even sure how he has reached that realisation.

Character attributes

• Untrustworthy – Helena will do anything to make Demetrius like her, even giving away her best friend’s secrets.
• Frustrated – it’s hard to love someone so much and get nothing back. She wishes she could fight for love like a man.
• Suspicious - when Lysander and Demetrius tell her they love her she thinks it’s a cruel joke. What’s more, she suspects that her best friend, Hermia is in on it.
• A fool for love – Helena knows she is making a fool of herself. Demetrius is in exactly the same position as her, chasing after Hermia, who doesn’t love him, but he is not seen as a victim, because he is a man.

Friends and enemies

Helena’s friends and enemies are the same people, at different times in the play.

• Hermia - her best friend, but she betrays her and calls her names.
• Demetrius – she loves him but throughout the play he shows his dislike and disrespect for her. In the end though, he realises he loves her too.

Character changes

• Helena begins as a sad and lovesick figure, but because of the spell she ends up confused by the fact that both Lysander and Demetrius are in love with her. She does get her happy ending though, when Demetrius realises he loves her after all.
• She has a complicated relationship with Hermia – she is supposed to be her best friend, but Helena tells Hermia’s secret to Demetrius to try to get his gratitude.
• In the middle of the play Helena and Hermia fight, and call each other lots of names. But Helena can’t really stand up for herself against Hermia. In the end they are all good friends again.

Egeus is an important man in Athens, a friend of the Duke, and Hermia’s father. He would rather have his daughter put to death than allow her to marry the man she loves.

He goes to the Duke of Athens to get permission to deal with his disobedient daughter as he sees fit:

EGEUS
I beg the ancient privilege of Athens;
As she is mine, I may dispose of her

Act 1 Scene 1

Character attributes

• Hot-headed
• Cruel

Duke of Athens, Theseus is soon to be married to Hippolyta. He is busy making wedding plans and would rather not have this happy event blighted by the death of a young Athenian girl. He overrules Egeus in the end when Demetrius tells them all that he is in love with Helena after all, and proposes a triple wedding ceremony.

Theseus was at war with Hippolyta, but now she has surrendered and they’ve decided to get married. He seems very happy that things have turned out this way.

THESEUS
Hippolyta, I wooed thee with my sword,
And won thy love doing thee injuries;
But I will wed thee in another key,
With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling.

Act 1 Scene 1

Character attributes

• Powerful
• Happily in love

Hippolyta is the Queen of the Amazons. She lost a battle against the Duke of Athens and now she is getting married to him. She says very little in the play.

Whilst watching Bottom’s play about Pyramus and Thisbe, she comments:

HIPPOLYTA
This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.

Act 5 Scene 1

Character attributes

• Intelligence
• Poise

He is a carpenter by trade, and the director of the play, Pyramus and Thisbe. He leads his gang of actors, mostly with gentlemanly patience… until Puck plays a magic trick on Bottom.

When Puck transforms Bottom, Quince tries to explain:

QUINCE
Bless thee, Bottom, bless thee! Thou art translated!

Act 3 Scene 1

Character attributes

• Patient
• Long suffering

Bottom is a weaver, playing the lead part of Pyramus in Quince’s play. He is passionate about acting even if he isn’t very good. Puck makes him even more ridiculous by giving him the head of an ass. Under a spell, the Queen of the Fairies falls in love with him.

Oberon releases Titania from the love spell, and Bottom is left thinking that his night with the fairy queen was just a dream. He decides to ask Peter Quince to write it down so that he can perform it at the wedding:

NICK BOTTOM
it shall be called ‘Bottom’s Dream’, because it hath no bottom.

Act 4 Scene 1

Character attributes

• Bossy
• Self-centred

Flute is a bellows mender. He plays the female part of Thisbe, so we can assume that he is relatively young and has no beard.

When Peter Quince is giving out the parts for the play, he protests:

FRANCIS FLUTE
Nay, faith, let not me play a woman: I have a beard coming.

Act 1 Scene 2

Snout is a tinker. He is chosen to represent the wall. His main purpose is to provide a gap with his fingers for the characters, Pyramus and Thisbe to whisper through.

He announces his purpose in the play whilst it is being performed:

TOM SNOUT
I, one Snout by name, present a wall.

Act 5 Scene 1

Snug is a joiner, a kind of carpenter. In playing the role of the lion, he is worried about learning his lines. He is also worried about being too convincing, in case he frightens the ladies in the audience.

Snug asks for a part in the play that has the least lines:

SNUG
Have you the lion’s part written? Pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study.

Act 1 Scene 2

Starveling is a tailor. His role in the play is to represent the moon. He seems to feel uncomfortable with his part. Luckily, his dog comes on stage with him to keep him company.

Starveling announces his part in the play to the wedding guests:

ROBIN STARVELING
All that I have to say is to tell you that the lantern is the moon,
I the man i’th’moon, this thorn bush my thorn bush and this dog my dog.

Act 5 Scene 1

Titania is the Queen of the Fairies. She has fallen out with her husband because he wants to take a little boy that she has adopted to join his fairy gang. Oberon charms her so that she falls in love with Nick Bottom, a weaver/amateur actor who is also under a spell: he has donkey’s ears.

When she wakes up, she thinks her night with Nick Bottom was a dream:

TITANIA
My Oberon! what visions have I seen!
Methought I was enamoured of an ass.

Act 4 Scene 1

Character attributes

• Independent
• Passionate

Oberon is the King of the Fairies. He uses a love spell to get revenge on his wife, Titania. With Puck’s help, he uses magic to interfere in the love lives of others with comic and disastrous effects.

He begins his argument in the woods with his wife:

OBERON
I'll met by moonlight, proud Titania!

Act 2 Scene 1

Character attributes

• Jealous
• Romantic

Puck is Oberon’s right-hand man. He is also known as Robin Goodfellow and has a reputation for causing mischief in the mortal world. He causes confusion when he puts love potion in Lysander’s eyes rather than Demetrius’s. He is responsible for giving Bottom his ass’s ears.

When he sees the confusion he has caused amongst the lovers in the woods, he laughs:

PUCK
Lord, what fools these mortals be!–

Act 3 Scene 2

Character attributes

• Mischievous
• Reluctantly obedient