Juliet is the west, and Hermia is the sun.

In the play A Midsummer Night's Dream, by Shakespeare, there are many characters that you can compare with to the play, Romeo and Juliet. In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet one of the main characters. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hermia is also one of the main characters. Hermia and Juliet are both extremely alike. They both share many characteristics that are similar in both plays.


Hermia is Eugus's daughter, and Eugus is a respected noblemen. Hermia is so beautiful that she has two men that are chasing after her. They both want to marry her, but she wants to marry the one man that her father forbids her of. Hermia has the choice of only marrying Demetrius by her father's rules. Hermia on the other hand, does not wish to marry Demetrius. She has intentions of marrying her love, Lysander. Hermia defies her father's wish, and sticks with Lysander. In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet is ordered to marry Paris by her father's wishes, but she defies him, also, and decides to marry Romeo. Juliet is a very beautiful woman, just like Hermia, and has two men that want to marry her. She does not like the man that her father wishes for her to pursue. Both Juliet and Hermia were in the same situation.



Hermia is a strong-willed and independent woman. She refuses to comply to marry Demetrius even when Theseus, the duke of Athens, orders her to obey her father. Demetrius says that she must abide with her father's orders, or else she will be banished or put to death. Hermia uses her intuition to do what she wants, and she still defied her father's wishes. Juliet also is a strong-willed and independent woman. She does not want to listen to her parents and she does not want to do what they want her to do, and that is to marry Paris. In Romeo and Juliet, Paris is just like Demetrius. He wants Juliet to listen to her mother and father. Juliet is a smart girl and makes these special arrangements to have her marry Romeo anyway.



When Hermia refused to marry Demetrius, Lysander and Hermia decided to elope and get married. Hermia is so in love with Lysander, that she does not care that she is disrespecting her entire family. Lysander believes that love must conquer all obstacles, so he pursues Hermia to run away from her home and family with him, into the forest where they can secretly get married. Lysander says to Hermia, " Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, war, death, or sickness did lay siege to it, making it momentary as a sound, swift as a shadow, short as any dream, brief as lightening in the collied night; that, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and Earth, and ere a man hath power to say "Behold!" The jaws of darkness do devour it up. So quick bright things come to confusion." Lysander is saying that when you have your love life determined by someone else, that even if the lovers are a good match, their love can be ruined by war, death, or sickness, so that affair only lasts an instant. Their time together might be as fleeting as a shadow or as short as a dream, lasting only as long as it takes a lightening bolt to flash across the sky. Before you can say "look," it is gone. That is how intense things like love are quickly destroyed. Hermia thinks that, if that is so, then the true lovers are always thwarted, and that it must be a rule of fate. She thinks that they should just try to be patient and figure out their problem carefully. Lysander then realizes that he has an aunt who is very rich and lives about twenty miles away from Athens. There they can elope and get married. In Romeo and Juliet, Romeo says that she should meet him while she tells her parents that she is at confession, and then they will get married. Juliet agrees with him and thinks that after that, she will move to Manchua to start their lives together. With both Hermia and Juliet, where they both elope to, there they can have the life they want without any problems.

Juliet and Hermia are both very much alike. They both have similar personalities and have the same problems. They both are very smart and independent women. They do what they want, when they want, and will not let anyone stop them, including their families. They both have people that try and get them to marry the right person, but Hermia, nor Juliet, agrees with them. They think that it is ridiculous for someone else to determine their love life, and not marry the one that they want to. They each think that if their families really did care for them that they would respect their decisions, but they do not. Juliet and Hermia both decide to elope and do what it is that their heart is really telling them to do. They cannot stand the thought of marrying someone besides their love, and they will do whatever it is to get what they want, including death being amongst them.