Preview

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1843 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Love VS Infatuation

Love is one of the most immense feelings a human can experience. Love is a deep tender feeling of affection and attachment and devotion to another person. Countless people experience love, both, as non-romantic with their families and romantic love with a special person who comes into their life. When people are on the expedition for love, people may become blindsided by infatuation or what is commonly referred to as lust. Infatuation is being completely carried away by a foolish or shallow affection. Individuals can accept infatuation instead of love, or they cannot tell the difference between the two. One of the many themes in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is love vs. infatuation. Love is stronger, no matter what the circumstance may be. The play A Midsummer Night’s Dream investigates and portrays the intricate relationships among three couples. The relationships become jumbled up and turn into a love triangle.

The first couple introduced in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is Lysander and Hermia. Lysander and Hermia truly symbolize the wholesome meaning of romantic love. Their love is exceedingly strong, which makes the lovers inseparable. The play does a wonderful job of showing the concrete stages of their relationship. One example is why Hermia’s love is strong, is that she listens to her father, Egeus, but then makes her own decision, based on her own feelings and not those of her family or society, to commit to Lysander. In the play, Hermia’s father wants her to marry Demetrius and not Lysander. Hermia also went against Theseus, the Duke of Athens, and defied the ancient law of Athens, by choosing to continue her bond with Lysander even though it might mean her death or lifelong chastity. Love is stronger than infatuation, because it means two people making a long term commitment to each other, which does not happen in infatuation. An example of this is when Hermia and

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    To conclude, these circumstances add to the controversial marriages throughout the story, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. However, those forces negatively overcame mutual desire as in the case of the war-made couple Hippolyta, and Theseus, the couple who fell in love due to a potion Helena, and Demetrius, and a couple with true love but ridden with obstacles Hermia, and Lysander. Overall, Shakespeare has negatively impacted the book by allowing external forces to affect the marriage, and dictate the…

    • 829 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “That’s the way of the world… for every man that is faithful to his true love, a million end up running after a different lover.” (pg. 91) Shakespeare uses the comedy of Midsummer’s Night Dream to show the many complexities of love. For example, Egeus wants his daughter Hermia to marry Demetrius, but she is in love with Lysander and him with her. Meanwhile Helena is in love with Demetrius, who obviously does not feel the same about her. Even the play that the rude mechanicals put on for Theseus is based around the humor and complexities of love.…

    • 341 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    This play is very confusing there is a lot of things going on at once. Love is a very important part in the play, because it happens with a lot of people. In the play Shakespeare is saying that the man doesn't always have to be a leader in a relationship. For example Helena came to Demetrius telling him about her love for him. Another example is when Hermia's father gave her 3 options marry Demetrius, become a nun or die. For her sake of love she chose to run away with her love Lysander, her true love…

    • 410 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lysander and Hermia, both young and well-off, are unpermitted, according to the Ancient Privilege, to wed each other without the approval of Hermia’s father, Egeus. However, not quite prepared to end their relationship, the lovers very ambitiously and suddenly run into a nearby forest. They have done so without considering the consequences, and as a result, find themselves lost. Lysander suggests this, when he says, “Fair love, you faint wandering in the wood, and in truth, I have forgot our way,” (II. ii. 41-42). Later in the play, the duke of Athens, Theseus, overbears Egeus’ will, and insists Lysander and Hermia wed each other on his marriage day. Hermia, in quickness and happiness, agrees, without considering her father’s reaction. By doing so, she may be sacrificing her relationship with him. In both situations, the young Athenians pay no attention to the consequences of their relationship, which supports the idea that love ignores all…

    • 491 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Demetrius is more of a cold soul, but that is transfigured in the final bits of the play, and Lysander is the hopeless romantic of the play. He spoils Hermia with little knacks and treats and even sings to her at her window sill in the night “Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung/ With faining voice verses of feigning love[...]” (1,1:31,32). Though it is quite obvious that the two men are tremendously different, there also are some similarities, more so near the end of the play as opposed to the beginning/middle. Both men find a partner in which they marry. In the final act, Lysander and Demetrius lock away their differences, and resolve the conflict between the…

    • 584 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Interestingly this aspect of the play is similar to that of the story of ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ which Shakespeare wrote at a similar time. Both plays depict a girl trying to escape from a forced marriage, however the outcome in A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream does not encompass the same tragic ending. However in the beginning of the play the author does not tell the audience that Lysander and Hermia will be so lucky. Shakespeare shows the power of love by the similarity of the two plays; if Egeus had achieved his plans, Lysander and Hermia may have also taken their own lives in despair. Instead they plan to run away together and married where Lysander’s aunt lives; “There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee.”…

    • 480 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Return of Kracken

    • 1039 Words
    • 5 Pages

    “The course of true love never did run smooth,” comments Lysander, articulating one of A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s most important themes—that of the difficulty of love (I.i.134). Though most of the conflict in the play stems from the troubles of romance, and though the play involves a number of romantic elements, it is not truly a love story; it distances the audience from the emotions of the characters in order to poke fun at the torments and afflictions that those in love suffer. The tone of the play is so lighthearted that the audience never doubts that…

    • 1039 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hermia wishes to marry her romantic love Lysander but her father Igneus has power over her as by law and paternal love. Shakespeare presents for us the conflict between eternal and romantic love. "The course of true love never went so smooth"-Lysander. This quote proves that love brings hard times and conflicts during its timeless life. The audience develops the theme of love and the conflict that can be caused by inter-relation of love.…

    • 556 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Love and Midsummer Night

    • 765 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In A Midsummer Night's Dream the challenges to romantic love are when Hermia goes against her father’s orders to marry Demetrius the man that she doesn’t want to marry.…

    • 765 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Midsummer Nights Dream

    • 776 Words
    • 4 Pages

    At the Start of a Midsummer Night’s Dream the relationships between the lovers, Hermia, Helena, Lysander and Demetrius are very confusing. Hermia is being forced by her father, Egeus, to marry Demetrius which she doesn’t love but he loves her. Hermia loves Lysander and he loves her. Helena loves Demetrius In Act 3 scene 2 and nobody loves Helena. The relationships between the lovers change because Puck puts a love potion first, on Lysander’s eyes and then on Demetrius’s eyes so that the first person they saw when they woke up, they loved. So now both Demetrius and Lysander love Helena. Helena still loves Demetrius and, Hermia still loves Lysander. But now nobody loves Hermia.…

    • 776 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    a midsummer night's dream

    • 896 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream draws sharp parallels between the two sets of order in the play; one seen in Athens, and the other in the forest. Athens is the paragon of order, with Theseus ruling in a logical and equitable manner. The "enchanted" forest is a place of chaos and magic, untouched by such logical laws as we see in Athens. Faeries and inconstant love rule here, while logic and laws govern the movements of Athenians. Both places serve different qualities, and together the two orders end up attending to both the rational and restless aspects that the characters present.…

    • 896 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As Lysander says, "The course of true love never did run smooth." Love in A Midsummer Night's Dream is portrayed as complicated and difficult, yet Shakespeare does it in a way that is humorous and lighthearted. In this play love often brings out the worst in people, yet in the end it's what brings everyone back together. Love has the ability to spellbind people as Shakespeare represents symbolically through Puck's actions, and we see how intensely complicated it can be when it nearly tears apart Hermia's family and causes argument between the four main human characters. The four types of love, forced love, parental love, romantic love and complicated love permeate all aspects of life in this play and we see the awesome power it has over human emotion, psychology, and behavior.…

    • 863 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    An earlier play entitled, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, by William Shakespeare, is a comedy outlining the destinies of two bothered couples. Shakespeare tactically demonstrates the love of two Athens individuals, Lysander and Hermia. The conflict is, Hermia’s father is against the marriage of the two and insists upon marriage with a man named Demetrius. However, the already complicated situation becomes more complex when Hermia discovers that Helena, a deep-rooted friend, is in love with Demetrius. My initial interest of the play arose during the introduction of this conflict.…

    • 819 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    People have different opinions about the definition of love, and whether a couple is truly in love or not. For instance, the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare, portrays the life of four young Athenian lovers who struggle to find their soulmates. As Oberon, the king of fairies, tries to help the four lovers by using a love potion to match the right couples, more chaos is caused between them. In addition, Oberon also tries to steal his wife’s, Titania, adopted kid because he wants to make him one of his knights. This couple encounters many arguments throughout the play, but, as the story unfolds, the two fairies are shown to be truly in love, as they have a longstanding and a sustainable, strong love.…

    • 852 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    "Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind." This quote is said by Helena during Act 1, Scene 1, Lines 234 - 235. What Helena means is that, Love is an affection which occurs with the mind and not with eyes. Looks aren't everything, Love happens when 2 souls attract to each other. Therefore Love is said to be blind.…

    • 670 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics