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Midsummer Night's Dream Irrationality

Decent Essays

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is one of many famous works written by William Shakespeare, the greatest writer of the 17th century. It tells a story of eight lovers, four of which simply cannot get along, as two people love the same person and one is left out. However you can learn quite a bit from this story, all you have to do is look closely. Theseus, the duke of Athens, is preparing for his marriage to the queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta. Egeus, an Athenian nobleman comes into Theseus’ wedding with his daughter Hermia and two men, Lysander and Demetrius. Egeus wishes for Hermia to wed Demetrius but she is in love with Lysander and refuses to do so. Her father warns her to listen to his wishes otherwise she’d possibly be executed …show more content…

An example of this would be in (III.II.255) Lysander says, “If thou say so, withdraw and prove it too.” Which was a threat to Demetrius to a fight, in which he replies “Quick, Come!” To accept his challenge, purely because they disagree on who loves who. Another example is Puck’s thoughts on the lovers, he says in (III.ii.115) “Lord, what fools these mortals be!” As an exclamation to how little the lovers use logical reasoning to make their decisions, and that their choices are based solely on …show more content…

This can be represented by Lysander’s famous quote in (I.i.135) “The course of love never did run smooth”. This explains how love isn’t a smooth course that runs without trouble, but rather a bumpy, rough one that will encounter lots of problems along the way, and how it is not a simple feeling. Arguments breaking out (III.ii.122), using love potions in an attempt to settle the lovers (II.i.170) are a couple of examples for

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