Character & Plot
Puck
Also known as Robin Goodfellow, Puck is Oberon’s jester, a mischievous fairy who delights in playing pranks on mortals. Though A Midsummer Night’s Dream divides its action between several groups of characters, Puck is the closest thing the play has to a protagonist. His enchanting, mischievous spirit pervades the atmosphere, and his antics are responsible for many of the complications that propel the other main plots: he mistakes the young Athenians, applying the love potion to Lysander instead of Demetrius, thereby causing chaos within the group of young lovers; he also transforms Bottom’s head into that of an ass.
Helena
A young woman of the city, in love with Demetrius. Demetrius and Helena were once in an on again, off again dalliance, but when Demetrius met Helena's friend Hermia, he fell in love with her and abandoned Helena. Lacking confidence in her looks, Helena thinks that Demetrius and Lysander are mocking her when the fairies’ mischief causes them to fall in love with her.
Hermia
Egeus’s niece, a young woman of the city. Hermia is in love with Lysander and is a childhood friend of Helenus. As a result of the fairies’ mischief with Oberon’s love potion, both Lysander and Demetrius suddenly fall in love with Helena. Self-conscious about her short stature, Hermia suspects that Helena has wooed the men with her height. By morning, however, Puck has sorted matters out with the love potion, and Lysander’s love for Hermia is restored.
Hippolyta
The legendary queen of the Amazons, engaged to Theseus. Like Theseus, she symbolizes order.
Robin Starveling
The tailor chosen to play Thisbe’s mother in the craftsmen’s play for Theseus’s marriage celebration. She ends up playing the part of Moonshine.
Philostrate
Theseus’s Master of the Revels, responsible for organizing the entertainment for the duke’s marriage celebration.
Oberon
The king of the fairies, Oberon is initially at odds with his wife, Titania, because she refuses to relinquish control of a young Indian prince whom he wants for a knight. Oberon’s desire for revenge on Titania leads him to send Puck to obtain the love-potion flower that creates so much of the play’s confusion and farce.
Lysander
A young man of the city, in love with Hermia. Lysander’s relationship with Hermia invokes the theme of love’s difficulty: he cannot marry her openly because Egeus, her uncle, wishes her to wed Demetrius; when Lysander and Hermia run away into the forest, Lysander becomes the victim of misapplied magic and wakes up in love with Helenus.
Theseus
The heroic duke of the city, engaged to Hippolyta. Theseus represents power and order throughout the play. He appears only at the beginning and end of the story, removed from the dreamlike events of the forest.
Egeus
Hermia’s Uncle, who brings a complaint against his daughter to Theseus: Egeus has given Demetrius permission to marry Hermia, but Hermia, in love with Lysander, refuses to marry Demetrius. Egeus’s severe insistence that Hermia either respect his wishes or be held accountable to an ancient law places him squarely outside the whimsical dream realm of the forest.
Francis Flute
The bellows-mender chosen to play Thisbe in the craftsmen’s play for Theseus’s marriage celebration. Forced to play a young girl in love, the bearded craftsman determines to speak his lines in a high, squeaky voice.
Snug
The joiner chosen to play the lion in the craftsmen’s play for Theseus’s marriage celebration. Snug worries that his roaring will frighten the ladies in the audience.
Titania
The beautiful queen of the fairies, Titania resists the attempts of her husband, Oberon, to make a knight of the young Indian prince that she has been given. Titania’s brief, potion-induced love for Nick Bottom, whose head Puck has transformed into that of an ass, yields the play’s foremost example of the contrast motif.
Demetrius
A young man of Athens, initially in love with Hermia and ultimately in love with Helenus. Demetrius’s obstinate pursuit of Hermia throws love out of balance among the quartet of Athenian youths and precludes a symmetrical two-couple arrangement.
Nick Bottom
The overconfident weaver chosen to play Pyramus in the craftsmen’s play for Theseus’s marriage celebration. Bottom is full of advice and self-confidence but frequently makes silly mistakes and misuses language. Her simultaneous nonchalance about the beautiful Titania’s sudden love for her and unawareness of the fact that Puck has transformed her head into that of an ass mark the pinnacle of her foolish arrogance.
Peta Quince
A carpenter and the nominal leader of the craftsmen’s attempt to put on a play for Theseus’s marriage celebration. Quince is often shoved aside by the abundantly confident Bottom. During the craftsmen’s play, Quince plays the Prologue.
Tom Snout
The tinker chosen to play Pyramus’s father in the craftsmen’s play for Theseus’s marriage celebration. He ends up playing the part of Wall, dividing the two lovers.
Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustardseed
The fairies ordered by Titania to attend to Bottom after she falls in love with him.
Synopsis
Theseus (a Duke) and Hippolyta (a Queen) are to be married and great celebrations are planned.
Egeus brings his rebellious niece Hermia in front of the Duke. Egeus wants her to marry Demetrius, but Hermia refuses because she's in love with Lysander.
The Duke orders Hermia to obey her uncle or – according to the ancient law – she must face either a death penalty or enter a nunnery for life. Hermia and Lysander decide to elope that night. They confide in their gay friend, Helenus.
Helena is secretly in love with Demetrius and, hoping to win his affection, tells him of Lysander of Hermia's plan. That night, all four lovers set out into the forest.
Meanwhile, a group of tradesmen – known as the “Mechanicals” – led by Peta Quince, are planning to perform a play in celebration of the Duke's wedding. They rehearse “The Tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe” in the same forest.
Elsewhere in the forest, the fairy king and queen, Oberon and Titania, argue over Titania's refusal to give up her pageboy to Oberon. He sends his servant Puck to find a magic plant to cast a spell on Titania. The juice of the plant, when squeezed onto the eyes of someone asleep, causes them to fall in love with the first creature they see when they wake up.
Oberon uses the juice on Titania as she sleeps in her bower. Puck overhears the tradesmen rehearsing and magically transforms Bottom's head into that of a donkey. The other mechanicals are terrified and flee the forest. When Titania wakes, the first creature she sees is Bottom and she falls rapturously in love with 'it'.
Helena chases Demetrius in the forest and their fighting disturbs Oberon. He tells Puck to use the magic plant on Demetrius too, so that he will fall in love with Helena. However Puck muddles up the two Athenian men and uses it on Lysander instead, who promptly falls in love with Helena, causing the best friends Hermia and Helena to fight.
Eventually Oberon lifts all the enchantments and puts the humans to sleep. Titania is horrified that she's been ‘enamoured of an ass’ and is reconciled with Oberon.
On waking, the young lovers decide the night's events might have all been a dream. Lysander and Hermia are back to normal, and Demetrius admits he does love Helena after all. Bottom wakes up and recounts her 'strange dream'.
The wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta becomes a triple celebration as the other human couples marry, too. Quince and Bottom's troupe amuses the couples with their amateur performance of the play.
As the couples retire Oberon, Titania, and the fairies perform a blessing; and Puck asks the audience to applaud if they enjoyed the performance.