Discussion Topic
Hermia and Lysander's Romantic Journey in A Midsummer Night's Dream
Summary:
In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hermia and Lysander's romantic journey begins with their decision to elope to escape Hermia's father's wishes. They face numerous challenges, including magical interference in the forest and misunderstandings. Despite these obstacles, their love endures, and they are ultimately allowed to marry, highlighting the play's themes of love and reconciliation.
How does Lysander fall in love with Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream?
Egeus, Hermia's father, speaks to Theseus in act 1, scene 1, asking him to forbid Lysander to marry Hermia. According to Egeus, Hermia has fallen in love with this young man because Lysander bewitched her. Egeus outlines all the ways Lysander has wooed his daughter. Hermia says she considers Lysander, not her father, a god.
As for Lysander, we get much less of an explanation, though the many ways he has sought Hermia testify to a man besotted and lovesick. Lysander states of Hermia:
My love is more than his [Egeus's].
Lysander also implies he loves Hermia because she is "beauteous," or beautiful.
Helena offers more insights, saying that Lysander loves Hermia for her eyes, her voice, and her fairness. But she also notes that love is like an irrational child. It doesn't need a logical reason to love. Once a person decides to love someone, he or she turns...
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all the beloved's features into beauties. Helena states:
Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity.
Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind.
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
Nor hath Love’s mind of any judgment taste—
Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste.
Lysander and Hermia are in love before the play begins, so we do not get to see their courtship. But we can infer from what they say about each other that they are typical young people in love, drawn to each other by physical attraction and an idealized version of what the beloved one is.
They are suited to each other by class and status, which is what Lysander emphasizes in the beginning of the play when Hermia's father openly prefers Demetrius to him as Hermia's suitor, so, again, we can assume they had many opportunities to see and appreciate each other on social and court occasions.
Through the magical twists and turns of A Midsummer Night's Dream, we can believe that they are restored to what is perhaps a more mature love by the end of the play . . . unlike Helena and Demetrius, who are together only because the love potion was never removed from Demetrius's eyes.
How does Hermia end up marrying Lysander in A Midsummer Night's Dream?
Hermia and her beloved Lysander have fled to the forest, as it's the only place where they can express their love for each other without fear. Hermia's father, Egeus, wants to marry his daughter off to Demetrius, but Hermia's not interested; she only has eyes for Lysander. Egeus is very much of the old school when it comes to parenting; what he says, goes. And if he wants Hermia to marry Demetrius, then as far as he's concerned, she jolly well will, whether she likes it or not. Besides, if Hermia persists in defying her father's wishes, under Athenian law she'll either be executed or end up in a convent. So off to the forest she goes with Lysander.
Thanks to the mischievous Puck's magic, the course of love between the two lovebirds doesn't go smoothly at all. For one thing, Lysander has fallen in love with Helena, because Puck mistakenly put a drop of magic flower on his eyes instead of on Demetrius's. Thankfully, Oberon intervenes and cleans up Puck's mess, and soon Demetrius is in love with Helena as originally intended. The problem, though, is that Lysander is still bewitched, so he joins Demetrius in the pursuit of Helena.
Puck makes amends for his earlier blunder by putting Hermia, Lysander, Helena, and Demetrius to sleep. He's placed an antidote on Lysander's eyes so that when he wakes up he'll no longer be smitten with Helena. However, trouble soon arrives in the shape of Egeus, who has finally managed to track down his errant daughter and her lover. He demands that Hermia marry Demetrius, but Demetrius, still under Puck's spell, remains head over heels in love with Helena. Theseus, the king of Athens, who has accompanied Egeus to the forest, overrules him and releases Hermia from her obligation to marry Demetrius. Hermia is now free to marry Lysander, the man she loves.