The Feminist Subtext of A Midsummer Night's DreamShakespeare's works have consistently influenced humanity over the past four hundred years. Quotes from his plays are used in many other literary works, and some common phrases have even been integrated into the English language. Most high schoolers haven't been able to avoid it, and college students are rarely given the luxury of choice when it comes to studying the bard. Many aspects of Shakespeare's works have been studied, but one of the most popular topics since the 1960s has been the portrayal of women in Shakespeare's tragedies, comedies, histories, and sonnets. To accurately describe the role of women in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, one must first explore the female characters in the text. Shakespeare's plays had few women because women were not allowed to act in London in the late 1500s and early 1600s. Ignoring the standards placed on women of his time, Shakespeare created many strong-willed, intelligent, and bold female characters. Hermia from A Midsummer Night's Dream is one such character. He disobeys his father, his king, and Athenian law in order to marry the love of his life. She discards all the luxuries of her familiar, comfortable existence for the uncertainties of a distant land in exchange for the freedom to love Lysander. The only complaint against Hermias from feminist critics stems from her willingness to defy a set of boundaries derived and maintained by men – her father, the king, and the male authors of Athenian law – to become another man's subordinate Still. However, even as he rebels against the limitations towards which he ultimately runs, he is much more independent... middle of paper... their beloved monarch who despite being one of the few highly competent English sovereigns of his gender and the sexism of the time in which he lived. Regardless of his reasoning for writing women the way he did, Shakespeare was certainly a proponent of feminism when he wrote A Midsummer Night's Dream. From a feminist perspective, liberal thinking and open-mindedness like that of William Shakespeare are welcome to invade our modern literature and our lives for the next four hundred years. Works Cited Greene, Lenz, Neely, eds. The Woman's Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1980. Kolin, Philip C. Shakespeare and Feminist Criticism. NY: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1991.Shakespeare, William. Four comedies: A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, The Tempest, Twelfth Night. New York: Washington Square Press, Inc., 1962.