A Midsummer Night's Dream Feminist Analysis

It appears that Hippolyta and Titania’s main purpose in the play is as a tool to reinforce male superiority and female subservience in order to add comedic strands specifically aimed at the original intended audience, in this case, the elizabethan royal court. Through an exploration of the themes of love, sexuality and marriage Shakespeare shows that the Women in the play are, to a certain extent, there to be the play toys of the powerful men around them; Whether a daughter is being threatened with death, unwilling marriage or a life as a nun or a Warrior queen is being forced into submission by a totalitarian husband, the opinions and feelings of a women are rarely taken into account, and, if acknowledged, are brushed to aside as seen in Act 5, Scene 1 when Hippolyta voices her opinions of Theseus’ choice of play.
The exaggeration of male power in A Midsummer Night’s Dream appears to hold less comedic weight in a feminist reading than it would have at the time of its debut when shakespeare’s intentions would have been clear and fit the niche in which the comedy is tailored towards. A Midsummer Night’s Dream presents male superiority not only through the two females chosen to be focused on closely in this essay (other women such as Hermia and Helena also show the influence of gender and the lack of empowerment they hold, particularly in Act 2, Scene 1 in which Helena, desperate for male approval, tells Demetrius to ‘use me, but as your spaniel’ and tells him to spurn, scorn and neglect her) but Hippolyta and Titania are the most prominent example of