Dysfunctional Relationships In 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'

People can become jealous by wanting something that someone else has. Overzealous jealousy leads to desperation in which people act irrationally to obtain the object of their desire. With irrational actions, people can ruin their relationships to ensure that they will never get what they want; however, other factors could intervene to help them get it. William Shakespeare explores these ideas in his play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Two characters that he uses to show these qualities are Oberon and Helena. According to Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, jealousy turns people to take desperate measures to get what they want, and they may need intervention to obtain what they desire.

The major distress in the film is, in my opinion, emotional distancing of the couple. It is inevitable that the emotional distancing can produce anxiety and imbalance of the relationship that lose its homeostasis. Although emotional cutoff tends to manifest through multi-generation of families according to Bowen Theory, distress caused by emotional cutoff in a family or a couple is as significant as distress caused through multi-generations of families. In reference to the film, the major conflict is the

*The family seems to breakdown at times, but the children have really good lives when they are grown up, and the parents are still homeless.* “Life is a drama full of tragedy and comedy. You should learn to enjoy the comic episodes a little more.” - Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle.

The character for whom I've chosen to do my analyses on is Patrick Solitano Jr. or Pat for short as portrayed in the film. Pat is a former teacher with a likable and inviting personality about him but can be tell by the naked eye he has some issues going on in his head. In the film he has just spent 8 months in a mental health facility and comes to live with his parents. The reason for his 8 month in the mental health facility was him coming home early from work and finding his wife Nikki naked in the shower with the history teacher Doug Culpepper. Seeing that

Functional and dysfunctional families are two different family settings that can cause conflict for the story.

Imagine being a thirteen year old girl walking home from school with your best friend. Out of nowhere a bully punches your friend in the eye. Since that day he hasn’t spoken to you. You feel a little part of your heart die. After many conflicts within her relationships she still maintains healthy relationships. Miranda and Sal had a great relationship until a bully changed that. Since they aren’t in best turms Miranda developed better relationships with Julia and Miranda’s mom. Each character and Miranda go through many changes with their relationships.

At the end of the movie the two girls make peace and Susanna leaves wanting an eventual full recovery for Lisa. This serves as the best example of “a pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation”.(2)

In the play A Midsummer Night’s dream by William Shakespeare, the readers learned about two lovers who run away to the forest, a fairy king and queen who are fighting over an Indian boy, and actors who are trying to entertain the duke and the duchess. A fairy named Puck tampered with relationships and caused confusion, anger, and sadness. Although there are many options on this play the one that stood out the most is how important of a role Puck played in the play. The first key idea is that Puck puts the flower juice on Lysander's eye making him fall in love with Helena. The second key idea is that Puck changes Bottom’s head into a donkey and how Demetrius falls in love, and the third key idea is how Puck changes Bottom’s head back into a human head.

“O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence! Love takes the meaning in love's conference.” Lysander's quote, “The course of true love never did run smooth,” is proven throughout the play as three couples face challenges and hardships as time goes on, that no love is easy and that anyone would do anything they can to keep the love they have. In “A Midsummer Night's Dream,” there are many examples of rough love, as seen with Hermia and Lysander when Lysander stops loving Hermia, when Helena love Demetrius but he does not love her back and with Titania and Oberon, as they argue over the changeling boy.

“ Falling in love is like jumping off a really tall building , your brain tells you it is not a good idea , but your heart tells you , you can fly. And then you die.” In Midsummer Night’s Dream, there are lovers but love ruins a lot of relationships, like the ones in the story. Love messes up everything in life, cause you know it feels ok until something happens like cheating or falling in love with someone else. Love is a powerful force that can ruin relationships.

The compelling novel, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape by Peter Hedges, incorporates many relationships. The main character, 24-year old Gilbert Grape, narrates this novel. Gilbert is the main caregiver to his dysfunctional family. He works to keep the roof over his obese mother, stressed older sister, Amy, ungrateful younger sister, Ellen, and mentally challenged younger brother, Arnie. With all of the unwanted responsibility, Gilbert does not have many relationships. The ones that he does have are not meaningful and sturdy. The most interesting of these relationships are with Mrs. Carver and Becky. These relationships, though they can be looked upon skeptically, are widely different in respect to what these characters mean to Gilbert and what

The supernatural world is rather distinct to that of the human world entrenched in societal standards and boundaries. Shakespeare’s play, ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, explores this concept, particularly through the use of Puck. In agreement to Harold Bloom’s statement, the following essay will analyse how Puck is significant because, by being so disparate, he is able to show the limitations of the human. This will be done through, first, exploring a definition of the human in relation to the supernatural. Subsequently, the essay will use a Freudian lense to analyse the morality of Puck and, lastly, the essay will focus on Puck’s physical characteristics as well as his ability to span across boundaries in the play and the metatheatrical realm.

This drama is touching to the heart as both the man and woman grow in their relationship. It shows meaning to the fact that life goes on no matter what happens and that things do get better. This story means so much because it shows that even through small communication so much is said. People need to remember what it is like to communicate and to remember that in the end it was all worth it.

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.”

If there was no such thing as sympathy, empathy, or love in our world, it would be a hard place to live. If there was no hard law or reason in our world, it would be a crazy place to live. Neither of these worlds would be anybody’s first choice as a home - it's just common sense take away either of these two fundamental aspects of life, and everything is immediately chaos. In fact, it is only in a world such as ours, where legal and human emotion work together, that we are happy. In William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare recognizes this truth and uses the two settings to represent the city of Athens as law, order, civility, and judgment, while the woods represent chaos, incivility, dreams, and love.