One of the most enduring themes in William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is love. Love is portrayed in a variety of ways in the play, from the light and airy romance between Lysander and Hermia to the more intense emotions felt by Oberon and Titania for each other. Even the mechanicals, who are not usually associated with love, express their deep affection for one another through their dedication to their play. Ultimately, love is shown to be a powerful force that can drive people to both great happiness and great sorrow.
While A Midsummer Night’s Dream is generally considered a comedy, there is no mistaking the fact that love is a major theme of the play. From the very beginning, love is presented as something that can cause pain and suffering as well as joy. Hermia is in love with Lysander, but her father wants her to marry Demetrius.
This conflict sets the stage for much of the action that follows, culminating in the lovers being turned into animals by Oberon’s magic potion. Love is also at the root of the quarrel between Oberon and Titania, which leads to more mayhem among the other characters. In the end, though, love (or at least marriage) triumphs, and everyone seems to be happily paired off.
One of the most interesting aspects of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is the way Shakespeare shows how love can change people. Hermia and Lysander are willing to defy Hermia’s father and run away together, showing the strength of their love.
Oberon and Titania, on the other hand, are willing to fight each other tooth and nail because of a lovers’ quarrel. And the mechanicals put aside their differences and work together to produce a play out of love for their craft. In each case, love is shown to be a powerful force that can motivate people to do things they might not otherwise do.
Whether it is the love between man and woman, or the love between friends or family members, A Midsummer Night’s Dream shows that love is a complex emotion that can have both positive and negative effects. Ultimately, though, Shakespeare seems to suggest that love is a good thing, something that should be celebrated and cherished.
Even without any outside magical interference, the tale is essentially a battle between who loves who. Lysander loves Hermia, and she loves him back, but Demetrius also loves her, and Helena loves Demetrius but he doesn’t love her or anyone else for that matter. To make matters worse, Lysander and Demetrius both fall victim to Oberon and Puck’s mischief and end up in love with Helena, leaving Hermia alone to love her.
Even the relationships that seem perfect and happy are not free of problems. Hermia and Lysander’s love for each other is strong, but it is also naive. Lysander proves this when he tells Hermia that he would “gladly change places with Demetrius” (II.i.180). In other words, he would be just as happy to love Helena if she were the one who loved him back instead of Hermia.
This comment shows that Lysander does not really understand what it means to be in love because if he did, he would know that his feelings for Hermia are different than his feelings for Helena. Love should be about more than just being loved back; it should be about a deep connection and understanding between two people.
Lysander also proves his naivete when he tells Hermia that they should run away together and live in the woods because “the course of true love never did run smooth” (I.i.134-135). He seems to think that their love will be perfect just because it is perfect now, but he does not realize that all relationships have ups and downs. No matter how strong your love is, you will always face challenges.
Lysander is not the only one who is naive about love. Hermia also has a lot to learn. She gets very upset with Helena for “stealing” Demetrius’s affections, even though she herself is in love with Lysander, who is supposed to be in love with Hermia’s best friend, Helena.
Hermia does not seem to understand that love is not a possession that can be stolen; it is a feeling that cannot be forced. She also does not understand that just because Demetrius does not love Helena now, it does not mean that he never will. Love is unpredictable and ever-changing, and Hermia needs to learn to accept that.
Shakespeare also shows that love is often selfish. This is most clearly seen in the character of Helena. She is so desperate for Demetrius’s love that she follows him into the woods, even though he has made it clear that he wants nothing to do with her.
She is constantly trying to force him to love her, even going so far as to tell him that Lysander and Hermia are running away together so that he will feel jealous and come after her. Helena’s actions show that she is more concerned with getting Demetrius to love her than she is with his happiness. She does not seem to care that her own happiness comes at the expense of Hermia and Lysander’s happiness.
Shakespeare also shows that love is often irrational. This is most clearly seen in the character of Oberon. He becomes so fixated on revenge against his wife, Titania, that he is willing to risk causing a lot of pain and suffering just to get back at her. He even goes so far as to put a love spell on Titania that will make her fall in love with the first creature she sees, which just happens to be a donkey. Oberon’s actions show that he is more concerned with getting revenge than he is with anyone’s happiness, including his own.
Another aspect of Shakespeare’s work on love is that it is real. Clearly, not all of the love he describes is genuine, but he implies that genuine love exists and is essential. To me, the only couple who demonstrated true love was Hermia and Lysander because all of the other couples who got married were influenced by either the love potion or some other form of external pressure to be together.
Hermia and Lysander were the only ones that truly loved each other from the beginning, and stayed together even when they weren’t supposed to be together. This is a good example of what true love really is; it’s being with the person that you want to be with, no matter what anyone else says. Shakespeare is trying to tell us that we should all be so lucky to have this type of love in our lives.
This speech is one of the most beautiful in all of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and it speaks to the power that love has to endure any and everything that might try to get in its way. Lysander is completely devoted to Hermia, and will do anything to make sure that they can be together, no matter what the consequences may be.
He would rather die than be without her, and this soliloquy makes that abundantly clear. Love conquers all in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, even death itself. In the end, everyone gets their happy ending, and all it took was a little bit of magic and a whole lot of love.
In this play, people express their love freely and without hesitation. To me, it doesn’t appear like the characters are truly in love; rather, they’re just captivated by the pure concept of it. If real love existed, they would want to take things a bit more slowly and really get to know each other before making such major decisions as marriage. Love is an important component of human existence; it should not be used merely because people desire to say it.
This play A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare is mainly about love. A lot of the characters in this play get married to each other or they are trying to pursue relationships with each other. The theme of love is also shown when Hermia and Lysander are running away from Athens because Hermia’s father wants her to marry Demetrius, but she is in love with Lysander. Helena is also in love with Demetrius, which creates a love triangle between the three characters.
Theseus, the Duke of Athens, is getting married to Hippolyta, the Queen of Amazon. Oberon and Titania, who are the King and Queen of Fairies, are also going through some marital issues because Oberon is jealous of Titania’s mortal servant, Bottom. In the end, all of the couples are happily married to each other and they all live happily ever after.
The theme of love is very prevalent throughout this play and it is shown in many different ways. Love can be portrayed as something that is beautiful and blissful, but it can also be shown as something that is confusing and complicated.
Shakespeare shows that love is not always straightforward and sometimes people do things that they never thought they would do because they are in love. The characters in this play experience both the good and the bad sides of love. Overall, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a play about love and its many different forms.