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'Eyes And Judgment In A Midsummer Night's Dream'

Decent Essays
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Barrera 4 Elizabeth Barrera
English 144
Professor Miller
06 October 2015
Fantastical Love
The repetition of “eyes” and judgment” throughout the text of Midsummer Night’s Dream plays a significant role in the characters’ lives. “Eyes” and “judgment” are used to describe love and control. The larger issues that Shakespeare wants us to notice in repeating these terms again and again are that though we may know what is reasonable and what isn’t, love will make us do irrational things and cloud our thoughts. In a sense, when people are in love, everything is seen in perfection and flaws are ignored—reasonable or not, love blinds the “eyes” and “judgment” is lost. Shakespeare used this strategy to demonstrate that when love is naïve and innocent …show more content…

Ultimately, the eyes are what lead to each couple falling for one another. For example, in Act 1, Scene 1, Helena is obviously upset over Demetrius’ change in mind about his feelings for her. She says, “For ere Demetrius looked on Hermia’s eyne/ he hailed down oaths that he was only mine/ And when his hail some heat from Hermia felt/ So he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt.” (Act 1, scene 1, 242-245). Demetrius made a promise to Helena that he was in love with her and there wouldn’t be another. It was almost like a vow, promising that no other woman can take her place because she was the one he wanted, for he was in love. However, after looking into Hermia’s eyes, the love he felt for Helena suddenly seemed to vanish—like a spell, breaking the promise he initially made to Helena. There is a sense of betrayal and deceit in these few lines. Though Demetrius made a promise to Helena, his eyes fell for Hermia, deceiving him and upsetting Helena. The conflict that Shakespeare emphasizes in this section is that “judgment” fails the characters. When a person is in love, they believe to still think with reason. However, if this were to be true, then why would Demetrius’s eyes fall for another woman? Deceit plays a big role in this play to demonstrate that no love is perfect and that reasoning …show more content…

For example, the speech delivered by Theseus at the beginning of Act 5, Scene 1 demonstrates the relationship between the two. “That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic/ Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt/ The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling/ Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven/ And as imagination bodies forth/ The form of things unknown, the poet’s pen/ Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing/ A local habitation and a name. (Act 5, scene 1, 10-17). The relation demonstrated by Theseus in this part of the play tells the reader that poets, lovers, and madmans’ lives aren’t realistic at all. Everything they live is through imagination, because they spend their time idealizing and fantasizing the life they wish to have—all through romanticism and passion. Furthermore, the poet envisions things that others have not seen before, fantasizing, and just as the madman, turning these ideas into realities through fine works of art. Essentially, the eyes are what lead all three characters into an unreal world where love is blind and judgment is out of the picture. However, as the play progresses, the characters live the experience of deceit because their eyes fail them time and time

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