A Midsummer Night's Dream By William Shakespeare

Hermia’s speech in Act 2, Scene 2, of Shakespeare 's A Midsummer Night’s Dream, contains an abundance of dream imagery. She has awoken from a terrible dream after falling asleep in the forest with Lysander. They were lost and tired so they decided to rest. Lysander wanted to sleep beside her but, she refused since they are not yet married and while they slept Puck applied a love potion on Lysander’s eyes thinking he was Demetrius. Lysander wakes and is repulsed by the sight of Hermia and never wants to see her again because he is now in love with Helena. Hermia awakes from her terrible dream and retells it thinking that Lysander is nearby listening. Then she realizes that he is not there and she does not see him anywhere. Hermia expresses the sentiment that she will find Lysander or she will surely die. She stated,

The play, A Midsummer Night's Dream, by William Shakespeare, demonstrates the difficulties of human love. Throughout the course of this play, all the lovers were confused, whether it be from the love potion provided by Oberon, the fairy king, or whether it be through natural terms, (those not affected by the potion). In this essay, we will be looking at how Lysander had agreed with this implication of human love being difficult, the scene where all the lovers are confused, and lastly, the time when Helena was furiously jealous of Hermia.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a masterful piece of literature that both directly and indirectly comments on the reality of control and power in Western cultures. Shakespeare’s ability to depict human nature gives us insight into how English society functioned in his lifetime, but more importantly allows us to analyze our own perspective of ourselves and the world around us. One way Shakespeare articulates his ideas is through well constructed metaphors and similies, resulting in more powerful writing. One very significant metaphor is spoken by Theseus early on in Act 1, scene 1. Egeus has brought his daughter, Hermia, to the royal court to for Theseus’s opinion on Hermia’s marriage. Egeus has arranged for Hermia to marry Demetrius, a very worthy suitor, but Hermia is truly in love with another man, Lysander. This dilemna is explained to Theseus and he states, “To you your father should be as a god;/ One that composed your beauties, yea, and one/ To whom you are but as a form in wax/ By him imprinted and within his power/ To leave the figure or disfigure it” (I.i.51-55). In summary, Theseus is defending Egeus by saying Hermia was created by Egeus and his will determines her fate. Behind this metaphor is a simple idea that proves how a desire to control can have many unintended consequences as well as negative effects. In order to understand this concept more effectively, it is crucial to analyze how influence is structured socially. The quote demonstrates

Love is many things, and is also used as a reference to sight and vision such as blindness. It is much more than aesthetics and wields the power of sight, and can also cause chaos and destruction. Similarly, Shakespeare utilizes two types of blindness by love; the first being physical due to a love potion a fairy king, Oberon orders upon the humans in Shakespeare’s, A Midsummers Night’s Dream. The second, being metaphorical due to Antony’s immense amount of love towards Cleopatra, in which hinders his political motivation in Shakespeare’s, Antony and Cleopatra.

Have you ever heard a quote that really stood out to you. And then you went and told you friends that quote and they liked it. And they told people who told other people and then everyone liked. Eventually, you know with all the social media programs these days, its going to end up on facebook or instagram and even more people are going to find out about it. Thats one way a quote can become famous but another way is if it is in a popular movie or book. In this case it is from one of Shakespeare's finest and most known, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream the quote “the course of true love never did run smoothly” applies to the different people in the book: the first couple is Hermia and Lysander, Second Demetrius and Helena, and finally Pyramus and Thisbe.

William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream has been categorized as a comedy play because of all the characters being passionately in love to the point of being foolish. It’s a play all about love, and the characters that are in love are only young adults, so they are still naive when it comes to love. Their naivety and foolishness regarding love is what allows them to be taken advantage of by mischievous fairies when they all run away into the woods. By critiquing the love affairs and numerous misunderstandings that occur within the mystical woods, I argue that Shakespeare 's A Midsummer Night 's Dream portrays the characters’ young love as a foolish fantasy with drastic consequences.

Relationships are a lot like hills, they tend to be traveled up and down. This is shown in William Shakespeare’s play, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. Theseus and Hippolyta, who were once enemies are now getting married. Oberon and Titania mutually rule the fairy kingdom and cannot see eye to eye. The intricacy of the love hate relationships helps to form the plot of the entire play and the fine line between the two drives the story to the end.

Love is such an abstract and intangible thing, yet it is something that everyone longs for. In Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the difficulty of love is explored through the obstacles that characters have to face while pursuing their loved ones. Those characters that are in love in the play were conflicted with troubles; however, the obstacles of love do not seem to stop them from being infatuated with each other. The concept of true love is examined throughout this play. By creating obstacles using authority and a higher power, Shakespeare examines the power of love. Through Hermia and Lysander’s loving words, it is reasonable to conclude that love conquers all if you believe in it.

Shakespeare presents the male characters within the play as either being fickle or faithful, he does this using many techniques. By putting each male character under a situation can express both their faithfulness and their fickleness, also by giving evidence to represent how they are either fickle and faithful allows us as a reader to figure it out at our own accord.

The strongest emotion humans can exchange is the feeling of affection and love. In Midsummer Nights Dream by William Shakespeare the characters of the play will do anything for love. It does not matter whether love is one sided, like as the case of Helena, or forbidden by your lovers father as Lysander , taking risks and fighting for love, as Hermia did is how true love is shown. Even though love takes them on difficult paths in the end they find their ways to happiness.

The relationships in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream are patriarchal. Even though the lovers try to go against the societal norm by running away to the forest, their inherited characteristics keep them trapped in the patriarchal way. The four lovers, Hermia, Lysander, Helena, and Demetrious, present a love that shows how the women remain loyal to their men through testing trials. Titania and Bottom have an unconventional relationship that is caused by love juice which provides the fulfillment of woman to man. Shakespeare uses the relationship between Titania and Bottom to emphasize the man’s status over a woman in a patriarchal society. To do this, he illustrates how a woman should dote upon her man by fulfilling his fantasies and

Throughout time arranged marriages were the norm in several societies. In the comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, Hermia is in love with Lysander, but her father wants her to marry Demetrius. She escapes into the woods with Lysander. Just like Hermia, many people around the world are forced to marry someone that their parents choose for them. Love marriage vs. Arranged marriage is always a debated topic. While there are instances of love marriages working out, there are arranged marriages which are successful too. Both have their pros and cons. And it is just the world around us which makes us support or be against a love marriage. Arranged marriages are based on the understanding of two families. The parents of the bride or groom get to pick their future partner. On the other hand, love marriages are more of an independent choice between the bride and groom. Giving them the freedom to marry someone they know and admire. There are different customs and traditions that are followed in different societal set-ups. Arrange marriages lack love and respect between husband and wife. Arranged marriages are a social injustice. They deprive individuals of their choice. Marriage is a commitment of two people who have made a vow to love each other till death. In the essay I will be debating the pro’s and con’s of arranged and love marriages.

Shakespeare’s language usage in Midsummer Night’s Dream is full of strong metaphors to help emphasis important laws on human nature. A perfect example of a metaphor Shakespeare uses to shake up our understanding on people is when Hermia states, “That he hath turn’d a heaven unto a hell!” while exchanging words with Helena. This metaphor was used by Hermia in an attempt to explain the strength of her love for Lysander and to ease Helena’s uneasy mind. Her uneasy mind was apparent upon the initial greeting offered by Hermia. Instead of a formal greeting back, Helena begins complaining about how lovely Hermia’s features are. Concluding her rant, Helena asks Hermia for advice on how to win over Demetrius. Hermia, seeing Helena in clear distraught, attempts to ease her mind by telling Helena of her and Lysander’s plans to leave Athens. Upon doing so, she directly relates Athens to a “paradise” she once knew. The restrictions within Athens, preventing her from loving Lysander, has turned this “paradise” unto a “hell”. This is made clear to the reader when Hermia says, “Before the time I did Lysander see, / Seem 'd Athens as a paradise to me”. Hermia’s love for Lysander simply trumped her love for Paradise and in having to decide between the two, Hermia chooses Lysander. Throughout the rest of Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare consistently uses powerful metaphors, such as the one Hermia gave, within the dialect of the characters to draw conclusions on the chaotic and foolish

Shakespeare’s usage of metaphor and simile in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is best understood as an attempt to provide some useful context for relationships and emotions, most often love and friendship, or the lack thereof. One example of such a usage is in Act 3, Scene 2 of the play. Here, the two Athenian couples wake up in the forest and fall under the effects of the flower, thus confusing the romantic relationships between them. Hermia comes to find her Lysander has fallen for Helena. Hermia suspects that the two have both conspired against her in some cruel joke, and begins lashing out against Helena. She says “We, Hermia, like two artificial gods, / Have with our needles created both one flower, / Both one sampler sitting on one cushion, / Both warbling of one song, both in one key; / As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds, / Had been incorporate. So we grew together, / Like a double cherry, seeming parted; / But yet a union in partition / Two lovely berries moulded on one stem: / So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart; / Two of the first, like coats in heraldry, / Due but to one, and crowned with one crest.” (Shakespeare 2.3.206-13). Shakespeare writes this list of vibrant metaphors to establish the prior relationship between these two characters and to make it evident how affected Helena is by this unexpected turn of events, as well as to add a greater range of emotion to the comedy, thereby lending it more literary and popular appeal.

In a Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare story about romantic desire. Theseus and Hippolyta, are about to be married; both of them are wonderful figures from classical mythology. (Greek Mythology) Theseus is a great warrior, a kinsman of Hercules; Hippolyta is an Amazon warrior-woman, defeated in battle by Theseus. (Theseus and Hippolyta) He was longing for the wedding day, and this is what opens the play and closing the play with their exit marriage bed. (Theseus and Hippolyta).