A Midsummer Night's Dream Research Paper

Different Types of Love in A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a comedy, written in 1595 during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. This was when the society was dominated by men. During the period, England was ruled by a powerful and well respected queen.

Love is a very common theme that is seen in literature, and love is one of the most powerful things that can be felt for someone or something. Love can drive a person to do incredible or horrible things, and we see many forms of love that take place in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This is demonstrated in the book by many characters including Hermia and Lysander who demonstrate true love. Titania and Bottom show magical love. In the play, love is also the cause of a few broken hearts. While there is no one common definition of love that suits all of the characters, the romantic relationship in the play all leans to one simple rule laid out by Lysander, “The course of true love never did run smooth.”

Love is a theme which reoccurs through many of Shakespeare’s Plays. In ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, the theme ‘Love’ is presented from the very beginning in Act 1 Scene 1, through Shakespeare’s use of poetic language, structure and vivid imagery.

Love is one of the most difficult mysteries of life. The difficulty of love is shown throughout A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In the play, the characters have to deal with jealousy that comes along with being in love. Love’s difficulty in the play comes from love being out of balance. Love being out of balance is a romantic situation where a difference gets in the way of happiness in the relationship. William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream demonstrates these conflicts with a little bit of humor and buoyancy. The four young Athenians have many difficulties with love. Hermia loves Lysander and Lysander returns the feelings; Helena loves Demetrius but Demetrius loves Hermia. The two men love the same women, which leaves Hermia

Love is a term used daily in one’s life. Many categorize love in many forms. These forms differ from one-another such as the difference between love for food and love for one’s spouse. However, in the play; “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, love takes different forms than the ones experienced in reality. One can classify the different types of love used in this play into three different categories; true love, love produced by cupid’s flower, and the state of lust.

True love is the most powerful love in this story as it is the sort that hurts no one and is really from the heart. It is demonstrated when Lysander says " There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee, and to that place the sharp Athenian law cannot pursue us. If thou

Staying true to one's love is so very important when one believes in their true love with every fibre of their being. Hermia and Lysander are so in love that nothing else seems to matter. They want to be together at all costs and they will not let anything get in their way, this is true especially for

At one time, Demetrius loved Helena, and then he fell in love with someone else. Initially, Demetrius had given his love to Helena: “He hailed down oaths that he was only mine, / And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt, / So he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt” (MND 1.1.243-245). Helena loved Demetrius, and he promised to be with her forever. However once he met her friend, Hermia, Demetrius left Helena to chase after her friend. Helena’s jealousy of Demetrius’ love drives her to think about what he really wants. Helena believes that Hermia’s beauty is why Demetrius desires her. She tells Hermia, “Demetrius loves your fair”, and she goes further to say, “Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated, / The rest I’d give to be to you translated” (MND 1.1.182, 190-191). Her jealousy of Demetrius’ love has turned into jealousy of Hermia’s beauty. Helena obsesses over having Demetrius back to the point that she continuously follows him around. Demetrius is tired of Helena chasing him: “Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair?” (MND 2.1.199). Demetrius does not understand why she tries so hard to be with him when he does not even compliment her. Demetrius threatens Helena to leave him alone: “I’ll run from thee, and hide me in the brakes, / And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts” (MND 2.1.227-228). At this point, he is beyond exhausted with Helena, and he will do anything to get away from her.

Both female lovers, Helena and Hermia, feel the loss of their male companions love at one point within the comedy. In the beginning Demetrius cannot stand the sight of Helena. To prove his hatred he says, “I love thee not, therefore pursue me not fair Helena”(II.i.173). Accordingly Lysander ,further into the play, loses his love for Hermia. To her he says “Ay, by my life, find never did desire thee more, therefore be out of hope of question of doubt, be certain, nothing truer, ‘Tis no jest that do hate thee and love Helena”(III.i.284-287. Both

In this point in the play we find Helena begging to be loved by Demetrius. She constantly follows Demetrius around but he is madly in love with Hermia a long with Lysander. Hermia is the daughter of Egeus and he demands she marries Demetrius even though she is in love with Lysander. Even though Helena knows Demetrius does not love her she will forever try to win him over. Demetrius tries to tell Helena that he loves Hermia.

Does Lysander love me anymore? In an attempt to escape Hermia’s duties as a daughter and a woman, Lysander composes the idea of running away into the forest where his aunt lives while being unaware of the effects it may have on his relationship with Hermia as well as their trust for one another. Living so close to the forest allows not only Hermia and Lysander to escape from their problems but as well as the Athenian people looking to commit a crime or freely express themselves. In the Discussion of Egeus marriage arrangement, Lysander gives Hermia immense confidence for a marriage in the forest assuring her “I could marry you there, gentle Hermia, where the strict laws of Athens can’t touch us.”(I.i.ll 160-1) referring to the strict laws of Athens shows the tremendous lack of freedom towards the citizens of Athens especially women forced into marriage. Agreeing with this plan causes a ray of happiness towards Hermia allowing her to share the secret with her lifelong friend Helena soon revealing her plans to Demetrius, her true love, overflowing him with determination to find Hermia before marrying Lysander. As the four lovers scavage through the forest on the hunt for their cravings disaster strikes as a fairy servant is sent to withdraw the love for Hermia from Demetrius into Helena causing a catastrophic change of fate among Lysander and Hermia. As Lysander walks up with the essence of the flower of love on his eyelids to the presence of Helena in front of him, shapes true love into an illusion. The confrontation of disbelief from Hermia assures she feels “Can you hurt me any more than by saying you hate me? Hate me? Why? What’s happened to you, my love? Am I not Hermia? Aren’t you Lysander?...you still loved me when we fell asleep, but when you woke up you left

Lysander and Demetrius both love Hermia. Both of them are willing fight for her. “ I am, my lord, as well derived as he, As well possessed. My love is more than his. My fortunes every way as fairly ranked, (If not with vantage) as Demetrius'. And—which is more than all these boasts can be—

In the play the reader gets the truth that Hermia’s father wants her to marry Demetrius, and as a woman living in a patriarchal society, she must obey; at least that is what the reader is lead to believe. Hermia takes a stand for herself and becomes powerless in her love for Lysander. With no reasonable explanation, besides her love for Lysander, she defiantly denies her father’s attempt for an arranged marriage. Since their love for each other is so immense, they prepare for the underlying bad circumstances they are going to suffer from for not obeying the wishes of her father. Hermia’s love for Lysander means so much more to her than the property or social placeholder she would gain by marrying Demetrius. Hermia dedicates herself to Lysander, saying he is worthy of the ultimate consummation of her love. She must convince her father that Demetrius is disgraceful and immoral. At the end of the play, Hermia and Lysander are eloped, and unlike Katherine and Petruccio in TOS, they demonstrate their dedication for each other from the beginning, disregarding a few

Hermia and Lysander had many challenges in the beginning of their relationship before they could truly be happy together. Egeus, Hermia's’ father, wanted Hermia to marry Demetrius and since Demetrius loved Hermia she was required by Athenian law to obey her father and marry him. If Hermia did not obey her father, she could be killed. This is shown when Theseus tells Hermia “You can endure the livery of a nun, For aye to be in shady cloister mew'd, To live a barren sister all your life, Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon. Thrice-

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare explores the subjectivity of love. The play shows the absurdity of love through its characters like an episode of “MTV The Real World”: they fall in love, break up, lose friendships, and someone will ultimately look like an ass. Shakespeare’s play examines the combination of both traditional and non-traditional gender roles affecting the character’s perception of their respective romantic relationships. Shakespeare then questions whether love is real through Lysander and Helena. Shakespeare’s play as a whole demonstrates how initial perceptions of love are subject to transformation. Both the characters and the play debunk that love is static, but rather an ever metamorphosing reality.