Based on the excerpt, which key idea is emphasized about Hermia and Helena?

Question

A.They are competing for Demetrius’s affection.
B.They are arguing over who is more beautiful.
C.They are fighting over Lysander’s love.
D.They are debating who is more courageous.

Overview: Robin Goodfellow reports to Oberon about Titania and Bottom. When Demetrius enters wooing Hermia, Oberon discovers that Robin has anointed the eyes of the wrong Athenian. Oberon then orders Robin to fetch Helena while he anoints the eyes of the sleeping Demetrius. Helena enters pursued by Lysander vowing his love. Demetrius awakes, falls in love with Helena, and also begins to woo her. Helena believes both men are mocking her. When Hermia arrives and learns that Lysander has abandoned her for Helena, she threatens Helena, who thinks that Hermia is part of the conspiracy. Lysander and Demetrius prepare to duel to prove their right to Helena. At Oberon’s command, Robin impersonates each of the two men in turn in order to lead the other astray until both, exhausted, fall asleep. Helena and Hermia also fall asleep. Robin applies nectar to Lysander’s eyes to undo the spell that has drawn him to Helena.
…
283 LYSANDER What? Should I hurt her, strike her, kill her dead?
Although I hate her, I’ll not harm her so.

285

290 HERMIA What, can you do me greater harm than hate?
Hate me? Wherefore? O me, what news, my love?
Am not I Hermia? Are not you Lysander?
I am as fair now as I was erewhile.
Since night you loved me; yet since night you left
me.
Why, then, you left me—O, the gods forbid!—
In earnest, shall I say?

295 LYSANDER Ay, by my life,
And never did desire to see thee more.
Therefore be out of hope, of question, of doubt.
Be certain, nothing truer, ’tis no jest
That I do hate thee and love Helena.
[Hermia turns him loose]
HERMIA
O me! [To Helena.] You juggler, you cankerblossom,
You thief of love! What, have you come by night
And stol’n my love’s heart from him?

300 HELENA Fine, i’ faith.
Have you no modesty, no maiden shame,
No touch of bashfulness? What, will you tear
Impatient answers from my gentle tongue?
Fie, fie, you counterfeit, you puppet, you

305

310 HERMIA
“Puppet”? Why so? Ay, that way goes the game.
Now I perceive that she hath made compare
Between our statures; she hath urged her height,
And with her personage, her tall personage,
Her height, forsooth, she hath prevailed with him.
And are you grown so high in his esteem
Because I am so dwarfish and so low?
How low am I, thou painted maypole? Speak!
How low am I? I am not yet so low
But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.

315

320 HELENA
I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen,
Let her not hurt me. I was never curst;
I have no gift at all in shrewishness.
I am a right maid for my cowardice.
Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think,
Because she is something lower than myself,
That I can match her.
HERMIA “Lower”? Hark, again!

325

330 HELENA
Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me.
I evermore did love you, Hermia,
Did ever keep your counsels, never wronged you—
Save that, in love unto Demetrius,
I told him of your stealth unto this wood.
He followed you; for love, I followed him.
But he hath chid me hence and threatened me
To strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too.
And now, so you will let me quiet go,
To Athens will I bear my folly back
And follow you no further. Let me go.
You see how simple and how fond I am.
HERMIA
Why, get you gone. Who is ’t that hinders you?
335 HELENA A foolish heart that I leave here behind.
HERMIA What, with Lysander?
HELENA With Demetrius.
LYSANDER Be not afraid. She shall not harm thee, Helena.
DEMETRIUS No, sir, she shall not, though you take her part.
340 HELENA O, when she is angry, she is keen and shrewd.
She was a vixen when she went to school,
And though she be but little, she is fierce.
…

Answer 1

The key idea emphasized about Hermia and Helena in the excerpt is:

A. They are competing for Demetrius’s affection.

Hermia accuses Helena of stealing Lysander’s love from her, while Helena expresses her feelings of being threatened by Hermia's anger, which suggests both characters are indeed in competition related to their romantic interests.