A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare is a complicated love comedy taken place in Italy. For our presentation we chose to reenact Act 1 scene 1
(Lines 183-231). The story starts off with Egeus, Hermia’s father, arguing with her on who she will soon marry. Egeus wants her to marry a man named Demetrius, when she is deeply in love with man named Lysander and plans to marry him despite her father’s wishes. Her father states that if she does not marry Demetrius that she will either be killed or but in a cloister. But, she does not care what he says; she is going to follow her heart even if it kills her. This takes us right up to our part of the scene, with Hermia, Helena, and Lysander.
During our part of the scene, Hermia is explaining to her best friend, Helena that she is eloping with Lysander. Helena has extreme love for Demetrius and doesn’t understand how Demetrius loves Hermia despite the hatred she shows towards him. Hermia comes to Helena greeting her with “Beautiful Helena” Helena replies by saying, “You call me beautiful, Demetrius loves your beauty.” She expresses herself in anger towards Hermia, basically proving that she envies her. Helena explains how she would love to be in her place, and wants Demetrius to love her. She asks Hermia to teach her how to do so, but Hermia states the more she hates him the more he follows her. Helena thinks as herself to be homely or ugly and wishes that she were more like Hermia. But she can only wish.
I believe the lines are important to this story because it shows the envy Helena really has towards Hermia despite their friendship. It also shows the contrast later in the story when both Lysander and Demetrius fall in love with Helena. Because Helena thinks as herself to be ugly, when both Athenian men love her, she thinks of it as a cruel joke. These lines also make it easier for the reader to understand the love confusion between Demetrius, Hermia, Helena, and Lysander, which has to me understood...