Hermia
Hermia is the play's most active female protagonist in the opening movement — the character whose defiance of her father's authority sets the lovers' flight in motion. In the forest she becomes the comedy's most wronged figure, her distress at Lysander's enchanted rejection sharpening the play's awareness that the magical jokes have real targets.
Appears In
Biography
Hermia is the daughter of Egeus, small and dark — she and Helena are repeatedly described in terms of their physical contrast, Helena taller and fair, Hermia shorter and fierce — and she is one of the play's most clear-eyed and stubborn figures. She refuses, at genuine personal risk, to marry the man her father has chosen, and elopes into the forest with Lysander rather than submit to the Athenian law that would give Egeus the right to compel her or see her executed.
In the forest, the enchantment turns Lysander away from her with sudden and total contempt, while Demetrius — the man she has fled — is made to pursue her with equal ardour. Hermia's confusion and distress at Lysander's rejection is the play's sharpest note of genuine bewilderment amid the comedy: she is genuinely hurt, genuinely lost, and the play's jokes about her height land differently when they come from the man she trusted most.
Her reconciliation with Lysander at the play's end is complete, though — like all the lovers — she will retain only the haziest memory of what happened in the forest. The Athenian law that threatened her is set aside by Theseus without ceremony, and she wakes to find everything arranged as she had hoped — a resolution as arbitrary in its mercy as Egeus's original decree was in its harshness.
Motivation
Hermia is motivated by genuine love for Lysander and an equally genuine refusal to be disposed of by her father's will. Her stubbornness is not romantic posturing but a clear-eyed decision to prefer exile — and the risk of death — over a marriage she has not chosen.
Personality
Hermia is the play's most fully resolved female character: she knows what she wants, she knows what it will cost her, and she goes after it anyway. Her ferocity in the forest — turning on Helena with genuine fury when she suspects her of betrayal — is of a piece with her courage in Act I: both are expressions of a nature that does not do things by halves. Her small stature is repeatedly played for comedy, but Hermia's personality makes the jokes feel slightly uncomfortable — she is too formidable for them to land cleanly.