A Midsummer Night's Dream Love Analysis

Love is a mysterious journey. Love can either be for the better, or the worse. Love should be the choice of you, yourself, and not forced upon you by others. As the famous quote “Love is not for the faint of heart.” states, love is not an easy thing. You must undergo heartache, failure and rejection in order to succeed with love. This is very prevalent in A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the case of Lysander and Demetrius. To Demetrius, love is more about gaining power, as opposed to actually obtaining a life partner, and someone who truly cares about you, and will stay by your side the entire time that you reside on this Earth. He continuously attempts to pursue Hermia, who does not love him back, and completely neglects the fact the Helena is begging for his love; telling him she will do anything to make the feeling mutual as stated when she says, “Neglect me, lose me. Only give me leave,/Unworthy as I am, to follow you./What worser place can I beg in your love—” (32,1:210-213). Demetrius’ hatred for Lysander is so strong that he is even accused by Hermia of killing him in his sleep, “If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep,” (3,2:47), when actually, Lysander just followed Helena when he awoke from his sleep after
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