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
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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
At one time, Demetrius loved Helena, and then he fell in love with someone else. Initially, Demetrius had given his love to Helena: “He hailed down oaths that he was only mine, / And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt, / So he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt” (MND 1.1.243-245). Helena loved Demetrius, and he promised to be with her forever. However once he met her friend, Hermia, Demetrius left Helena to chase after her friend. Helena’s jealousy of Demetrius’ love drives her to think about what he really wants. Helena believes that Hermia’s beauty is why Demetrius desires her. She tells Hermia, “Demetrius loves your fair”, and she goes further to say, “Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated, / The rest I’d give to be to you translated” (MND 1.1.182, 190-191). Her jealousy of Demetrius’ love has turned into jealousy of Hermia’s beauty. Helena obsesses over having Demetrius back to the point that she continuously follows him around. Demetrius is tired of Helena chasing him: “Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair?” (MND 2.1.199). Demetrius does not understand why she tries so hard to be with him when he does not even compliment her. Demetrius threatens Helena to leave him alone: “I’ll run from thee, and hide me in the brakes, / And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts” (MND 2.1.227-228). At this point, he is beyond exhausted with Helena, and he will do anything to get away from her.
Helena’s love for Demetrius is something sightless and illogical because she loves him, but he does not love her, and no one supports their love. Helena’s love is absolute, but at that point is where it grows foolish. No one in life chooses who they love, and for that reason it is blind. Also, love isn’t regularly supported by reason. While with Titania, Bottom states, “And yet to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.”
Throughout the play A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare uses both fate and free will to present his philosophy towards the nature of love. The characters struggle through confusion and conflicts to be with the one they love. Although the course of their love did not go well, love ultimately triumphs over all at the end of the play. The chaos reaches a climax causing great disruption among the lovers. However, the turmoil is eventually resolved by Puck, who fixes his mistake. The confusion then ends and the lovers are with their true love. Throughout the play Shakespeare's philosophy was displayed in various scenes, and his concept still holds true in modern society.
Hermia, originally the Apple of all Athens’ eye, put on an impossible pedestal by both Lysander and Demetrius, seems to trade social standings with the outcast Helena. It seems that Hermia doesn’t fully appreciate the quality of her state. She complains that her father will not allow her to merry her true love Lysander, and pawns her off to the inadequate Demetrius. Never can she accept the flattery of Demetrius’ unrequited love which her best friend would do anything to sincerely receive. Instead she revels in wonderment: “The more I [Hermia] hate, the more he [Demetrius] follows me” (I.i.198). Her unhappiness is far heightened when her two followers are given the love potion, turning them against her and beckoning to Helena. The cruel swap of fates lets the two female characters feel as though in the others’ shoes. It’s Hermia’s karma for being ungrateful at the attention bestowed upon her all these years that leads her to this harsh lesson.
“It is the nature of people to love, then destroy, then love again that which they value the most.” –Unknown. Countless authors have tried to display love as human nature, but no author does this better than the famous playwright, William Shakespeare. In both Hamlet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare exhibits how love can control a person. To understand how love controls a person, one must understand that human nature is the sum of qualities and traits shared by all humans. All humans have exhibit love in one way or another, which explains how human nature relates to the controlling aspect of love. In Hamlet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, conflicts between loyalty to family and friends, lack of trustworthiness towards others,
There are so many references to "the eyes" in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" that one would expect there to be a solid and consistent reason for their appearance. However, this does not seem to be the case. Indeed, the images associated with the eyes are so varied, and shift so frequently, that it is practically impossible to define what it is they represent. This difficulty reflects the problem of distinguishing between what is real and what is illusion -- a central theme of the play.
Love is a theme which reoccurs through many of Shakespeare’s Plays. In ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, the theme ‘Love’ is presented from the very beginning in Act 1 Scene 1, through Shakespeare’s use of poetic language, structure and vivid imagery.
Helena and Hermia have this kind of love and would do anything for each other. It happens that Helena is in love with Demetrius who Hermia is being forced to marry. Demetrius does not want Helena but Hermia. Helena loves her friend Hermia but at the same time wants to get her man.
Demetrius delivers this line in the forest after Helena has provided him with the information concerning Hermia and Lysander's plans to elope. Since Demetrius has taken what he wants from her and tells her to leave him alone. This shows that love can possess a cruel and abusive nature.
Helena is a very desperate and aroused woman who loves Demetrius with her life. Even though she shows a great passion of love for him, Demetrius rejects this and therefore piles another burden of sorrow onto Helena’s shoulders. She is fed up with Demetrius rejecting her, but Helena is not tempted to give up yet.
The love for Helena appeared out of nowhere. He did not develop the passion for her, it happened in one day. True love needs true passion, not passion from a potion. Love is not something that is material; it is felt from the heart, not a potion. Demetrius’ and Helena’s love is forged
One of the key passages in the play is Theseus's speech on "the lunatic, the lover, and the poet"(Shakespeare 5.1.7) Lunatic’s hallucinate, lovers may view ugly as beautiful, and poets craft words from nothingness into something. Throughout
Helena cannot stop the chase on Demetrius. She reminds us that love is blind, declaring that she is as beautiful as Hermia, so there is no logical explanation for Demetrius' sudden shift in affection. Helena gets upset when she believes that Hermia has betrayed her by joining Demetrius and Lysander.
In Helena’s soliloquy in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare uses eyes to describe how love makes people blind. While Helena describes Demetrius’s love towards Hermia, Helena states that Love is “painted blind” (241) and therefore Love is cheating and “perjured everywhere” (247). In this way, Helena implies that Love needs to be able to see clearly. Demetrius, however, is blind to “what all but he do know” and Helena wants “his sight tither and back again” (257). Because of Demetrius’s blind love towards Hermia, he is disloyal towards Helena. In addition, Shakespeare also makes it clear that Helena’s love is blind also. As a result of Helena’s love towards Demetrius, Helena is willing to betray her friend Hermia. Yet, this “figure[s] unheedy
If there was no such thing as sympathy, empathy, or love in our world, it would be a hard place to live. If there was no hard law or reason in our world, it would be a crazy place to live. Neither of these worlds would be anybody’s first choice as a home - it's just common sense take away either of these two fundamental aspects of life, and everything is immediately chaos. In fact, it is only in a world such as ours, where legal and human emotion work together, that we are happy. In William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare recognizes this truth and uses the two settings to represent the city of Athens as law, order, civility, and judgment, while the woods represent chaos, incivility, dreams, and love.