Demetrius is one of the four young lovers in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He falls for Helena, who rejects him and instead chooses his friend Lysander as her lover. Demetrius, upset by this rejection, begins to woo Hermia instead. In doing so, however, he is forced to fight with Lysander over Hermia’s affections.
In the beginning of the play, Demetrius loves Hermia. He wants to marry her but his father is against this so he sends Demetrius off to war to prevent them from getting married. When he returns home, he finds out that Hermia has run away with Lysander so he goes looking for her and finds her at Theseus’ palace where she’s being held prisoner by him along with all the other fairies who have been banished there because they have angered Oberon by not returning the Indian boy whom Oberon sent them to fetch back from Athens. Demetrius sees Helena and falls in love with her instead of Hermia which causes some problems later on when Puck turns him into an ass as revenge for what he did to his friend Titania (she fell in love with him too after seeing him fight for Helena).
As we can see, Demetrius is arrogant, rude, and self-centered. He is not good at listening to other people or understanding their feelings. He also has a short temper which makes him more likely to get into arguments with other people.
