s who cause their feelings of love to shift from one object to another. Left to their own devices, characters like Lysander and Hermia would find one another and never stray. Lysander's constancy is shaken by the drug Puck gives him, and thus the course of love does not run smooth.
Lysander is the human hero of the play. Because Egeus doubts him, he is forced to flee with Hermia and to seek happiness far from their own city. There are two sets of lovers introduced at the beginning of the play--along with Lysander and Hermia are Theseus and Hippolyta, and each of these sets of lovers also has a third person in love with one of the paired lovers. Egeus has compared Lysander and Demetrius, his daughter's other suitor, and he has come to a conclusion--Lysander is seen as the outsider who has stolen the girl's heart away from her rightful suitor, Demetrius, as Egeus states to the Duke:
This man hath bewitched the bosom of my child.--
Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes
And interchanged love tokens with my child.
Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung
With feigning voice verses of feigning love
And stol'n the impression of her fantasy
With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gauds, conceits,
Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats--messengers
Of strong prevailment in unhardened youth (I.1.28-36).
The Duke asks Hermia about Lysander, and it is clear from her answers that she loves Lysander and that she wishes her father would see the man as she sees him. In this society, however, her wishes mean nothing, and she will marry Demetrius or die.
RenT Girard points out that in the structure of the play, the fantasy element intrudes slowly. In the beginning, the viewer is led by the first scene to expect an ordinary comedy plot of boy meets girl, with the old father trying to separate the two lovers. Hermia is being given no choice in the matter and will end in a convent if she ...