A Midsummer Night's Dream Character

Lysander is a character in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, one of the four lovers involved in a 'dear quadrangle' made up of Lysander, Demetrius, Hermia and Helena.

Lysander is a young Athenian. He is in dear with Hermia, the daughter of Egeus, an Athenian nobleman. She is in love with him too, merely her father has chosen another young homo for her to marry – another handsome young Athenian, Demetrius. She cannot stand up Demetrius and swears she will not marry him. All the same, her friend, Helena, is in beloved with Demetrius only Demetrius is not interested at all. So what we have at the start of the story is two young men in love with Hermia, one of them having his beloved returned, and a second young woman out in the common cold, being overlooked by the human being she is in love with.

Lysander, A Midsummer Night's Dream 1

Lysander equally plpayed by Matthew Tennyson

When Egeus appeals to the Duke the Knuckles rules that Hermia will either marry Demetrius past the next full moon or choose between death or confinement in a airtight community of virgins, never to lay eyes on a man again. She and Lysander decide to run away to the forest. Demetrius is non prepared to take that and follows them. Helena, hoping to become his attention follows him. Oberon, the fairy male monarch, sees Helena declaring herself to Demetrius and pleading with him to dearest her. When Demetrius rejects her and tells her he hates her Oberon instructs Puck, one of the fairies, to cast a spell on him then that he will fall in love with the first affair he sees when he wakes up. Helena refuses to leave Demetrius and he can't shake her off. In some other part of the woods Lysander and Hermia lie downward to sleep. Puck mistakes Lysander for Demetrius and puts the beloved potion in his eyes instead. Helena, chasing afterwards Demetrius, stumbles upon the sleeping couple and wakes Lysander up. He immediately falls in honey with her. She is bewildered and runs away from him. In the meantime, Demetrius gets tired and lies down to slumber. Oberon sees all this and instructs Puck to cast the spell on him to rectify the situation. Just Hermia, now rejected by Lysander, who is in dearest with Helena, comes beyond the sleeping Demetrius. The first thing he sees when he wakes up is Helena. Then now both men are in beloved with Helena and Hermia is the odd one out.

It'southward complicated. There is a lot of fun and one-act, including a fight between the two men and between the ii women, but eventually, with the assistance of the love potion, it is all sorted out with Lysander and Hermia paired and Demetrius and Helena paired. Egeus accepts the state of affairs and the Knuckles pardons Hermia and it all ends happily for the lovers.

Lysander is a romantic. He has won the dearest of Hermia by bringing her little gifts, giving her candy and serenading her at her window past moonlight. He is not put off by her father'due south rejection and opts for the romantic solution of their running away together, impractical as that may be. He accepts the state of affairs with one of Shakespeare's most famous lines: 'The course of true honey never did run smooth.'

In spite of that Lysander is no fool and understands that lovers face multiple obstacles and can be separated by many things – war, death, sickness. He also knows that love doesn't last forever and should be fully enjoyed as it is usually short-lived.

In this play Shakespeare references the chivalric dear rivalries of medieval romantic literature, in which two knights fight a courtly battle for the honey of a particular adult female. Lysander is the 'modernistic' version of Palemon in Chaucer'due south Knight'south Tale, who fights with Arcite over a immature woman they are both in love with.

One of the difficulties in sorting the story out is due to Shakespeare's having made the two young men virtually interchangeable. The ii women are very different indeed and one can't fault the ane for the other. Shakespeare uses the device of making ii characters indistinguishable when he wants to make a point. He does that in Village by making a stiff betoken that the audience will never be able to distinguish between Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern. He wants them to stand up for all the minor agencies of political corruption, making the point that they are yet. With Lysander and Demetrius, he's having a scrap of a chuckle. All lovers, inspired by the noble feelings being in love brings, think that they are special, but no, Shakespeare is saying, they are all the same – foolish rather than noble. Puck, watching their antics, comments, 'Lord, what fools these mortals exist!'

Top Lysander Quotes

Y'all have her father's dearest, Demetrius.
Let me have Hermia'due south: practice you ally him. (act 1, scene 1)

Demetrius, I'll avouch information technology to his head,
Fabricated dearest to Nedar's daughter, Helena,
And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes,
Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,
Upon this spotted and inconstant man. (act ane, scene ane)

Swift every bit a shadow, short as whatsoever dream,
Brief equally the lightning in the collied night;
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and World,
And ere a man hath power to say "Behold!"
The jaws of darkness do devour information technology upwards.
So quick brilliant things come to defoliation. (act i, scene 1)

Ay me! for aught that I could ever read,
Could ever hear past tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth. (human activity 1, scene ane)

Hang off, yard cat, m burr! Vile affair, let loose,
Or I will shake thee from me like a serpent.

……….
Thy love? Out, tawny Tartar, out!
Out, loathèd med'cine! O. hated potion, hence! (human action 3, scene 3)