love in a midsummer night's dream essay

Love In A Midsummer Night’s Dream Essay

Shakespeare was pointing out that love is maddening and that people do very eccentric things for love. In the play A Midsummer night’s dream written by Shakespeare, the characters portray the quote written by John Lennon, ‘All you need is love’ in multiple ways. To some extent the quote is relatable and to some extent it is not. In the play, there is tension between love and law, thus, four lovers escape into the magic forest, while problems arise in the forest between Oberon, the king of fairies, and Titania, the queen of fairies.

Oberon’s most trusted servant, Puck (Robin Goodfellow) uses magic juice to play tricks, to entertain his master, by mocking the power of love. “I beg the ancient privilege of Athens, /As she is mine, I may dispose of her, /Which shall be either to this gentleman, /Or to her death, according to our law, /Immediately provided in that case. (1. 1. 42-46)”, this quote tells us that even if a daughter (Hermia) loves another man (Lysander), according to the law, the father (Egeus) has the right to decide which man (Demetrius or Lysander) his daughter will marry,.

Even though Hermia’s love for Lysander is strong, his father is strictly against Lysander. Therefore, love does not overtake the power of law, in this part of the play, although it does change in the end. Shakespeare is also trying to display the image of men have more power, especially over women, so women are showed weak and low in the beginning of the play In act 2, scene 1, Helena is trying to persuade Demetrius into loving her, but as they go deeper into the forest, Demetrius scorns her continuously, “I’ll run from thee and hide me in the brakes, /And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.

Demetrius loves Hermia, Helena’s closest friend, therefore Helena is jealous, for which Hermia has two lovers, and Helena has none. Shakespeare explores how people fall in love with those who appear beautiful to them. Helena is deeply in love with Demetrius, who loves Hermia. So, Helena is jealous of Hermia’s looks and she claims that she is as beautiful, and as fair as Hermia, “For she hath blessed and attractive eyes, /How came her eyes so bright…” (2. 2. 7-98), this quote indicates that Helena is jealous of the looks and wonders about what Hermia has that she doesn’t, that makes men follow her all over the place, especially Demetrius, who loves Hermia and not Helena. In the play, Demetrius shows love and attention to Helena, the woman he rejects, and Lysander leaves and forgets about his beloved Hermia.

This is the impact of the magic juice. Lysander and Demetrius even become reckless to fight for Helena’s love, “Now follow, if dar’st, to try whose right, /Of thine or mine, is most in Helena. ‘Follow’? Nay, I’ll go with thee, cheek by jowl. ”(3. 2. 356-368), this quote also tells us that both Lysander and Demetrius are ready to kill each other in return for Helena’s love. In the name of love, Helena and Hermia also scorn each other. When Hermia was horrified when Lysander says he no longer loves her, but he loves Helena. Thus, Hermia cannot believe that her childhood friend, Helena, could be so foul with her. Although Helena is furious as well, Helena does not believe that both Lysander and Demetrius love her.

She believes that their love to her is a big joke, as if they are mocking her, “Never did mocker waste more idle breath. ” (3. 2. 171). Helena is upset with Lysander to fond over her, for she simply does not love him back, and is shocked but surprised over how Demetrius is behaving. Titania and Oberon enter into the play, angered with one another although appears to be in love. Their image within the play is of a fairy couple who presently hates one another. Oberon places the magic juice on Titania’s eyes wishing that she will fall in love with “some vile thing” (2. . 40). By tolerating the fairy queen to fall in love with a vile creature, Oberon mocks the power of love. As a result, love is being played around, it is not naturally formed.

Titania is embarrassed on purpose by Oberon, because she falls in love with Bottom the weaver who seems to have a donkey’s head, with the influence of the magic. Oberon and Titania fight about various issues, including their love and their right of possession over the Indian boy, “These are the fictions of jealousy” (2. . 84). Because of the Indian boy, Titania hasn’t given much attention to Oberon, this makes Oberon jealous, and soon wants the boy, “Give me that boy and I will go with thee” (2. 1. 148). Wherefore, one fairy without the Indian boy is jealous of the other and will go to any span to get him back. Oberon wants the Indian boy to be his personal assistant, for which creates a fight between Oberon and Titania, and soon their love sinks.

The play A Midsummer night’s dream written by Shakespeare, many parts of the play, love is maddening and that characters do very eccentric things for love, like grow jealousy inside of them, fight for one’s love, or even embarrass one another, where behavior becomes unpredictable and individual’s identity is transformed. But in the end, however, lovers are legitimately married, but it does not quite confirm the distinction we might expect it. Demetrius still has the love-juice on his eyes, yet the play gives no indication of a difference between the marriages. The fictitious play is a comedy of love, which ends all in delight.

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A Midsummer Night's Dream

William shakespeare.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play about love. All of its action—from the escapades of Lysander , Demetrius , Hermia , and Helena in the forest, to the argument between Oberon and Titania , to the play about two lovelorn youths that Bottom and his friends perform at Duke Theseus's marriage to Hippolyta—are motivated by love. But A Midsummer Night's Dream is not a romance, in which the audience gets caught up in a passionate love affair between two characters. It's a comedy, and because it's clear from the outset that it's a comedy and that all will turn out happily, rather than try to overcome the audience with the exquisite and overwhelming passion of love, A Midsummer Night's Dream invites the audience to laugh at the way the passion of love can make people blind, foolish, inconstant, and desperate. At various times, the power and passion of love threatens to destroy friendships, turn men against men and women against women, and through the argument between Oberon and Titania throws nature itself into turmoil.

In A Midsummer Night's Dream , love is a force that characters cannot control, a point amplified by workings of the love potion, which literally makes people slaves to love. And yet, A Midsummer Night's Dream ends happily, with three marriages blessed by the reconciled fairy King and Queen. So even as A Midsummer Night's Dream makes fun of love's effects on both men and women and points out that when it comes to love there's nothing really new to say, its happy ending reaffirms loves importance, beauty, and timeless relevance.

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Shakespearean Love Concepts in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'

The Bard holds that lust, power, and fertility trump romantic love

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• Ph.D., English Language and Literature, Northern Illinois University
• M.A., English, California State University–Long Beach
• B.A., English, Northern Illinois University

"A Midsummer Night’s Dream," written in 1600, has been called one of William Shakespeare’s greatest love plays. It has been interpreted as a romantic story in which love ultimately conquers all odds, but it's actually about the importance of power, sex, and fertility, not love. Shakespeare’s concepts of love are represented by the powerless young lovers, the meddling fairies and their magical love, and forced love as opposed to chosen love.

These points undermine the argument that this play is a typical love story and fortify the case that Shakespeare intended to demonstrate the powers that triumph over love.

Power vs. Love

The first concept presented of love is its powerlessness, represented by the “true” lovers. Lysander and Hermia are the only characters in the play who are really in love. Yet their love is forbidden, by Hermia’s father and Duke Theseus. Hermia’s father Egeus speaks of Lysander’s love as witchcraft, saying of Lysander, “this man hath bewitched the bosom of my child” and “with feigning voice verses of feigning love ... stol’n the impression of her fantasy.” These lines maintain that true love is an illusion, a false ideal.

Egeus goes on to say that Hermia belongs to him, proclaiming, “she is mine, and all my right of her / I do estate unto Demetrius.” These lines demonstrate the lack of power that Hermia and Lysander’s love holds in the presence of familial law. Furthermore, Demetrius tells Lysander to “yield / Thy crazéd title to my certain right,” which means that a father must give his daughter only to the worthiest suitor, regardless of love.

Finally, Hermia and Lysander’s eventual wedlock is due to two things: fairy intervention and noble decree. The fairies enchant Demetrius to fall in love with Helena , freeing Theseus to allow Hermia and Lysander’s union. With his words, “Egeus, I will overbear your will, / For in the temple, by and by, with us / These couples shall eternally be knit,” the duke is proving that it is not love that is responsible for joining two people, but the will of those in power. Even for true lovers, it isn't love that conquers, but power in the form of royal decree.

Weakness of Love

The second idea, the weakness of love, comes in the form of fairy magic. The four young lovers and an imbecilic actor are entangled in a love game, puppet-mastered by Oberon and Puck. The fairies’ meddling causes both Lysander and Demetrius, who were fighting over Hermia, to fall for Helena. Lysander’s confusion leads him to believe he hates Hermia; he asks her, “Why seek’st thou me? Could not this make thee know / the hate I bear thee made me leave thee so?” That his love is so easily extinguished and turned to hatred shows that even a true lover’s fire can be put out by the feeblest wind.

Furthermore, Titania, the powerful fairy goddess, is bewitched into falling in love with Bottom, who has been given a donkey’s head by mischievous Puck . When Titania exclaims “What visions have I seen! / Methought I was enamored of an ass,” we are meant to see that love will cloud our judgment and make even the normally level-headed person do foolish things. Ultimately, Shakespeare makes the point that love cannot be trusted to withstand any length of time and that lovers are made into fools.

Finally, Shakespeare provides two examples of choosing powerful unions over amorous ones. First, there is the tale of Theseus and Hippolyta . Theseus says to Hippolyta, “I wooed thee with my sword / And won thy love doing thee injuries.” Thus, the first relationship that we see is the result of Theseus claiming Hippolyta after defeating her in battle. Rather than courting and loving her, Theseus conquered and enslaved her. He creates the union for solidarity and strength between the two kingdoms.

Next is the example of Oberon and Titania , whose separation from each other results in the world becoming barren. Titania exclaims, “The spring, the summer / The childing autumn, angry winter, change / Their wonted liveries, and the mazéd world / By their increase, now knows not which is which.” These lines make it clear that these two must be joined in consideration not of love but of the fertility and health of the world.

The subplots in "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" demonstrate Shakespeare’s dissatisfaction with the idea of love as a supreme power and his belief that power and fertility are the prime factors in deciding a union. The images of greenery and nature throughout the story, as when Puck speaks of Titania and Oberon meeting neither “in grove or green, / By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen” further suggest the importance that Shakespeare places on fertility. Also, the fairy presence within Athens at the end of the play, as sung by Oberon, suggests that lust is the enduring power and without it, love cannot last: “Now, until the break of day / Through this house each fairy stray / To the best bride-bed will we / Which by us shall blessed be.”

Ultimately, Shakespeare’s "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" suggests that believing only in love, creating bonds based on a fleeting notion rather than on lasting principles such as fertility (offspring) and power (security), is to be “enamored of an ass.”

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — A Midsummer Night's Dream — Exploration of The Nature of Love in A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Exploration of The Nature of Love in a Midsummer Night's Dream

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Published: Jul 2, 2018

Words: 1584 | Pages: 3 | 8 min read

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