Female Encompasses the Male: A Midsummer Night's Dream
In Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, women are subordinated to men. The action of the play takes place in two realms, the Real World and the Fairy World, but both are under the rule of a dominant male. In the Real World, Hippolyta, Hermia, and Helena are subject to Theseus, Lysander, and Demetrius respectively. In the Fairy World, Titania becomes subject to Oberon. They may start out rebellious, but end subdued in matrimony. Each woman will be briefly examined, including a speculation as to whether or not her status is degraded by the close of the play.
Hippolyta is the first female character presented in the play. She has the fewest lines of dialogue among the women, and these occur only in public scenes (i.e., opening, hunt, and masque scenes). Since she is always in the presence of her lord and others, Hippolyta's responses tend to be formal and to vail any insight into her psychological motivations. Her past is only passingly mentioned in the Dramatis Personae, "Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, betrothed to Theseus," and by 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 reveling.
(I, i. ll. 16-19).
Theseus makes their wedding day sound as if it will be a repeat of his military conquest over her and the Amazons, for do not conquerors celebrate victory "with pomp, with triumph, and with reveling" over the conquered? From the start, the play establishes Hippolyta as not only a subordinate to a dominant male figure, but a conquered subordinate at that. It is also interesting to note that never - anywhere in the play - does she mention her love for Theseus, nor does she ever start a dialogue, but merely replies. In fact, the only weapon she can still wield is her ability to fend off Theseus' advances at the opening of the play. In reply to his haste for sex, she says,
Four days will quickly steep themselves in nights,
Four nights will quickly dream away the time....
(I, i. ll. 7-8).
Her fluid response curbs Theseus' passions and redirects them towards the formal preparations of the celebration to come. But it must also be presumed that she will lose this weapon after the marriage is officially consummated. Though the queen of Athens, Hippolyta's status remains under her lord and husband, Duke Theseus.
Hermia is the second woman encountered in the play. Even before Hermia speaks, she is treated as property by the patriarchal society. In fact, she is considered chattel by the two Real World "fathers" of the play: Egeus and Theseus. As Hermia's biological father, Egeus feels that she is the product of his loins, thus he can dispose of her in any fashion his fancy desires. It also seems he cannot believe his daughter would go against his will, so he charges Lysander with enchanting and bewitching Hermia's heart. During this speech, Egeus' word choice is loaded with possessive terms ("my child, my daughter Hermia"), and he ends his prosecution with the claim of Hermia as his own property:
As she is mine, I may dispose of her,
Which shall be either to this gentleman [Demetrius]
Or to her death, according to our law....
(I. i. 42-44).
Egeus' reduction of Hermia as an object is further backed by the city's father-figure, Theseus. He reprimands Hermia by comparing her to an impressionable "form in wax" to be "figured or disfigured" by her father. Theseus even chides her by quoting, "To you your father should be as a god...." (I, i. l. 47). Interestingly enough, this compounded masculine attack on Hermia's character takes place before she even speaks in the play! Shortly following the verbal attack from the "fathers," Hermia gives a short apologetic speech in which she publicly degrades herself:
I do entreat your Grace to pardon me.
I know not by what power I am made bold,
Nor how it may concern my modesty,
In such a presence here to plead my thoughts....
(I, i. ll. 58-61).
In the space of two pages we get hints of Hermia's open rebellion to her father's male dominance and end with her cowed before the presence of the Duke. It is obvious that she lacks the fortitude to pursue her case with Theseus, which suggests her fear of male authority.� She certainly has no fault with language elsewhere in the play after she sneaks away from the reaches of the "sharp Athenian law." At the end of the play, Hermia is married off to Lysander, but since this occurs in the Real World, one can venture that her status will be diminished after the passions of love cool down. She will most likely become the wife of a noble lord of Athens: respected by some, yet never an equal.
Hermia is not the only woman to be degraded in the Real World, however. Helena's status too is reduced in this play through her own speech. This occurs in Act I, Scene I when she dotes after Demetrius, who is searching for Hermia in the woods. After being told by Demetrius that he loves her not, she replies,
I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius,
The more you beat me, I will fawn on you.
Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me,
Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave
Unworthy as I am, to follow you. (I, i. ll. 202-207).
Apparently Bottom is not the only one in the play reduced to a bestial creature! What image better denotes the subordination of a female to a male than a dog-master relationship? Nowhere else in the play do we have such pathetic fawning (unless through outside enchantment). If there were no enchantments and magic juices employed in the play, then Helena would most likely remain a doting fool, or perhaps she would have nominally risen to the status of paramour. But, like Hermia, Helena is also married off to a noble lord, Demetrius. Helena is actually the only woman to rise in status by the end of the play.
The fourth and most potent woman in the play is Queen Titania of the Fairy World. From the introduction of Titania we are given the strongest female threat to male domination in the entire play. Though initially hailed "proud Titania" by her husband, Titania's speech radiates a sense of righteous equality that is to be admired. Like Oberon, her status is backed by her own train of loyal attendants and there are allusions of her ability to wield the forces of nature. Titania's form of rebellion to male domination is withholding the changeling from the ever insistent Oberon. In fact, Oberon's demanding attitude and speech only reinforces Titania's propriety. For example, when Oberon rhetorically reminds Titania that he is her lord, she replies, "Then I must be thy lady...." (II, i. l. 64), a biting retort to Oberon's boorish words. Her speech is also well reasoned when describing her past relationship with the child's mother, and her desire to keep the boy for friendship's sake, unlike Oberon. Her words are also compassionate in describing the ails of the world that have resulted from their bickering separation. Furthermore, she is quite lucid in her answers to Oberon when she twice says she will never trade the boy for the entire Fairy World. During the argument scene Titania holds her ground against Oberon, as an equal would. But like every other female in the play, she too is reduced to a subordinate woman in the end.
The suddenness of Titania's change of attitude to Oberon's will is somewhat disturbing. Though a considerable amount of lines are used to describe the fierceness of their argument over the changeling and Titania's past relationship with the mother, only a few lines spoken by Oberon mention his acquisition of the child,
When I had at my pleasure taunted her,
And she in mild terms begged my patience,
I then did ask of her her changeling child;
Which straight she gave me....
(IV, i. ll. 60-63).
The scene is further muddied when Oberon speaks these words to awaken spell-ridden Titania:
Be as thou wast wont to be;
See as thou wast wont to see.
(IV, i. ll. 74-75).
But upon waking, Titania is not as she "wast wont to be," for she no longer makes mention of the child which she cared for out of love's sake. What makes the scene more disturbing is here we have a female character who is wholly admirable, wise, compassionate, eloquent, and powerful enough to rule or co-rule the Fairy Kingdom, yet Shakespeare subordinates her to Oberon without proper explanation. By making Titania an offensive threat to Oberon, it seems as if Shakespeare is acknowledging that some women have the abilities and capacities to become equals with men. But by making her stoically give up the little boy and following Oberon's commands, Shakespeare is perhaps alluding to his own fear of losing authority to women. Whatever Shakespeare's motives, Titania's final part in the remainder of the play is reduced to the role of wife-of-a-husband and no longer an independent individual. In summation, Titania went from the "Great White Hope for Women" to the "Great Wife Hope for Men."
Shakespeare allows some of these women choice and rebellion at the start of the play, yet all are locked in the state of matrimony in a patriarchal society at the play's end. In the Real World, Hippolyta becomes the conquered wife of a ruler, while Hermia and Helena become the wives of young noble lords. In the Fairy World, Titania, wife of Oberon, starts out rebellious and has the credentials to back her up, yet Shakespeare relegates her to the position of subordinate wife. By giving some women a rebellious nature at the start of the play, Shakespeare is perhaps sympathetic to a woman's desire to break free of a male dominated society. But he does not change the society by the end of the play; Shakespeare merely puts the women in their traditional state: wives of lords. The male encompasses the female.
© sklender, 1996 - Until My Death, and then three weeks beyond that.