Farce and Dramatic Irony in A Midsummer Night´s Dream by William Shakespeare

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.”

Throughout the play, A Midsummer Night’s dream, by the well-known playwriter, William Shakespeare, provided that the antagonist, Oberon, the King of fairies, is the root of all the problems. Despite this, we can look at the novel in a different way. To give an illustration, take the case when Oberon orders Puck to get the enchanted flower and pours its juice on Titania’s eyes, or when after overhearing on Helena and Demetrius argument, he orders Puck to pour the rest of its juice on Demetrius so he can fall in love with Helena and when Oberon realizes Puck puts the juice on the wrong person’s eyes.of this, the four lovers start to fight due to him being self-centered. Above all, in the novel Oberon is the root of all problems in A Midsummer’s Night Dream

Love is constantly changing or being manipulated and an example of this love is when Oberon, the king of the Fairies, gives his wife, Titania, the queen of the Fairies, a potion that makes her fall in love with an ass (77). Oberon does this act out of spite because his wife does not want to give him a changeling boy, an ugly idiot, stupid, fairy baby left in the human world, as a servant. Oberon instructs his personal fairy servant, Puck, to give a potion to Oberon’s wife and make her fall in love with an ass. There are two dreams in A Midsummer Night’s Dream that critics say are the only two that really matter.

The fairy king and queen live in a type of parallel universe to their human counterparts. The forest that they live in represents a break from reality, or at least the reality initially presented. Despite their supernatural abilities, Oberon and Titania endure arguments like any couple, which instantly creates a blurring of reality and fantasy in the play. It is from an argument regarding the young Indian prince that propels Oberon to be at odds with his wife, which compels him to create chaos through magic. He is driven by the love for his wife, and love is also a prevalent theme throughout the play. It is love that drives all the characters, and not always rationally. As Robert Dent writes in his article, “Imagination in A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, “love sees with that part of the mind that has no taste of judgment (177)”, which is clearly displayed by the couples in the play. Interestingly, the blurring of reality and illusion originates with a lover’s spat, highlighting the impact that love can have on reality.

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, written by William Shakespeare, Oberon- the King of the Fairies, illustrates his ruthlessness portrayed in the act of deceiving his own wife, but also depicts his kindness in his promise to ensure that all lovers will end up with a suitable partner. Oberon and Titania’s first interaction in the play involves an argument over an Indian boy, who he desires “to be [his] henchman” (2.1.121). Titania, however, refuses to hand him over, and so Oberon devises a plan to obtain the juice of a flower struck with Cupid’s bow that acts as a love potion. The instantaneous love provided by the love potion causes Titania to fall in love with the first creature she lays her eyes upon, which happens to be the donkey- headed Bottom.

The play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, involves several different couples; Theseus and Hippolyta, Lysander and Hermia, Helena and Demetrius, Titania and Bottom, and Titania and Oberon. What aspects of love are explored in each of these relationships and what point is Shakespeare trying to make about love. Shakespeare shows love in multiple ways, whether its mature, forbidden, married, spell-bound, or unrequited. By doing this Shakespeare is trying to suggest that love really is an obstacle course that turns us all into madmen.

Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream presents an assortment of characters whose difficulties with their lover’s present itself in many situation of the play through these unique relationships. In Act 3 Puck is reporting to Oberon about Titania and Bottom when Demetrius and Hermia enter the scene Puck states “This the woman but not this the man” (3.2.44). Puck’s quote holds a simple but repeated metaphor of the play itself and its reoccurring themes on the mystery love presents. Puck’s motives throughout the play don’t ever seem to get clearer aside from knowing that he services Oberon, and makes one mistakes to shake up the entire story before choosing to cause his own mischief. Through the entire story the fairy Puck plays one of the main antagonists, even from the beginning he is responsible for a lot of problems but later solutions. Shakespeare cast Oberon and Puck as character to create a living metaphor for the mystery behind conflict and resolution experienced in relationships.

MSND shows several views on love, but the one that stands out above all others is the view of love at first sight. The play has Oberon, the king fairy, fighting with Titania and then he sends his “servant” Puck, to find a flower to make her fall in love with whatever she sees when she wakes up. This then leads her to awake when Bottom, the man who plays Pyramus in their play the men are putting on for the duke’s marriage, is singing a song and so she is instantly in love with a man who has the head of a donkey. This comical play appeals more so than tragedy or romance to us as freshmen because we are like the peanut gallery, we enjoy the small, easy to get, jokes throughout the play. The next thing that grasps our attention as freshmen is the constant confusion between the lovers and their

Love is indicated to have no pattern in how it varies, as the change in affection is dictated by a love potion. Later, when Demetrius is put under Puck’s spell as well, Helena rebukes both his and Lysander’s love. She believes “[they] all are bent / to set against [her] for [their] merriment” (3.2). Helena demonstrates how, even when one is the subject of infatuation—especially from multiple people—one is not required to feel the same in return. Shakespeare uses Helena to exemplify how an emotion that changes so frequently cannot always be trusted.

This tends to cause problems because it makes people upset with him and affects others by hurting them or embarrassing them in front of their peers. Furthermore, Shakespeare utilizes Puck’s magic to turn Bottom’s head into an ass head. This is done as Bottom is hiding in the bushes whilst the actors are rehearsing their show for the duke. When Bottom makes his entrance, all of the men are scared and don’t realize who they’re looking it.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare uses different types of characters to portray different kinds of love. Lysander and Helena, the young lovers, and Oberon and Titania, the Fairy King and Queen, have different definitions of love in their relationship. Lysander and Helena have a pure, matter-of-fact connection. They are in love by default, simply because that is ingrained into their characters. Oberon and Titania, however, have a relationship built more on the basis of control. They play games with each other, trying to get the upper hand in the relationship. In the end, one being in control is more attractive to Oberon than the actual connection between the people in the relationship. This is what draws him to Helena, who possesses a naive and superficial love for Demetrius. Helena is more obsessed with Demetrius than truly in love with him, as there does not seem to be much basis for her infatuation. In the process of loving Demetrius, she deprecates her own character. Oberon appreciates the devotion Helena has for Demetrius and wishes Titania had her qualities, so he pities her, and assists with her conquest of Demetrius. However, his process takes Demetrius’s will away, much like how Oberon sought to humiliate Titania. Although the happy ending is with Helena and Demetrius together, their relationship is more similar to that of Bottom and Titania than Hermia and Lysander, which is what the audience is supposed to infer by their placement in the story.

Love potions, broken hearts, and even a little bit of sabotage are all many different factors that come into William Shakespeare's A Midsummer's Night Dream. All of these different elements became clear when a group of misunderstood characters spend a night in the woods playing with eachothers hearts. Oberon being the king of the fairies is a main center point of this night. Since he is the king of the fairies, he has possession of many different abilities the make love almost a type of a game. Throughout the book Oberon plays many different love games including putting love juice on Demetrius’ eyes, playing with Titania and even being too “powerful” to do some things that relate to love.

For instance, he uses Helena to explain this during her soliloquy. She says, "love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged cupid painted blind" (Ii240-241). This means that love is often chosen too fast without proper judgement. According to her, something about love blinds us, and that is part of what makes it irrational. Bottom is a character that is portrayed as a fool with a big ego. Nevertheless, he is one of the characters who convey the message of love's strange behavior. "Reason and love keep little company together nowadays," he remarks (IIIi147-148). He understands that often people love each other without reason. This is the case for Helena. Demetrius has proven to be an unworthy lover, but in spite of how badly he treats her and how much he hates her, Helena can not stop obsessing over him. Clearly, Shakespeare successfully conveys the point that love is often hard to explain and random in its

This suggests love drives the lover to a point of insanity, usually only reached by madmen and poets (like Shakespeare himself). From Helena's desperate traipse through the woods, to Hermia and Lysander's rash decision to elope, to the fairy queen falling in love with a literal "jackass", the play

In Midsummer Night’s Dream, we see a lot of minor and playful cruelty. Much of the comedy of this work is found in how ill the characters treat one another: Egeus to Hermia, Oberon to Titania, Lysander and Demetrius to each other, as the same for Helena and Hermia later on, Demetrius to Helena, Lysander to Hermia, and Puck to all. Despite the amount of tension and conflict swaying between characters, much is played to the comedy so the true emotions are over clouded by a reaction of crude sympathy, rather than empathy.