Love In A Midsummer Night's Dream Essay

William Shakespeare, the renowned Elizabethan playwright whose works explored themes based on the human concepts such as tragedy, love and conflict are still pertinent in modern society. Love is a recurring theme in his dramas and is imperative in forming the series of misunderstandings featured in the plot of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The play employs careful characterisation choices of lovers to act imprudently and alludes to symbolism through aesthetic devices which establish the theme of love. These aspects of the play are significant factors that enhance our understanding of the foolishness of lovers and the inconsistencies of their love, which develop in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Characterisation of Helena, the Athenian lover, provides
The play follows several groups, but the most significant being the quartet of Athenian lovers who are positioned in complex love triangles, resulting in chaos due to the interference of Oberon’s love potion. The love potion can symbolise the supernatural power of love. Under the influence of the love potion, Demetrius reciprocates his feelings for Helena, neglecting his prior desire for Hermia. He wakes up describing Helena as the epitome of a goddess and reveals that “If e’er I loved her (Hermia), all that love is gone”. This quote illustrates how the opinions of humans in love are easily wavered, making them inconstant due to love’s ability to create disorder and confusion. As this occurs, Puck, Oberon’s attendant, makes a perceptive comment saying “What fools these mortals be” as the inconstant love between the four lovers conveys the fickle human nature, possessing the inability to control their emotions under the influence of love. Furthermore Lysander, himself comments that “War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it, making it momentary as a sound” in reference to how love can be unpredictable and quickly perished by a single repercussion, such as the love potion. Regardless of the turmoil which emerges from the love potion, the plot assists in developing the inkling of how love changes humans to be inconstant and