The Theme of Love in A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare In the play ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ many aspects of love are explored. In this essay I will be exploring how Shakespeare conveys the theme of love including illusion, confusion, escape, harmony and lust. Historically, it has been suggested that ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ was written for a wedding, signifying the importance of love in this play, however there is no real evidence to prove this myth. Rather, the Lord Chamberlain’s men performed ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ on the London stage. Shakespeare creates a situation in which two pairs of young lovers, Lysander and Hermia, are forced to elope from the …show more content…
Shakespeare uses these types of structure to portray distinct characterisation; therefore the audience will gain a greater understanding of the characters and their love. As the scene shifts into the woods, there is an immediate change in tone and images. In Athens the tone was strict and firm, ‘upon that day either prepare to die’. Blank verse was used and images portrayed tradition. However, in the woods the tone is calm and images seem to be linked closely to nature. ‘Therefore the winds piping to us in vain, as in revenge have sucked up the sea’. The natural images are used to describe true love. Unlike the fearful Athens, the wood’s is free, but vulnerable to chaos. Puk, a mischievous fairy, accidentally muddles the characters up, when carrying out Oberon’s commands. Therefore, confusion begins; this allows different aspects of love to be explored. Puk’s language is full of natural images but containing within them the drama of the forest. ‘And now they never met in groove or green, by fountain clear or spangled starlight sheen’. Love in the woods is lustful and infatuated. Confusion is created, allowing the readers to be drawn into the play. Puk’s mischievousness and the error of his judgement are used as comic relief.
There are many instances in A Midsummer Night's Dream where love is coerced from or foisted upon unwilling persons. This romantic bondage comes from both man-made edicts and the other-worldly enchantment of love potions. Tinkering with the natural progression of love has consequences. These human and fairy-led machinations, which are brought to light under the pale, watery moon, are an affront to nature. Shakespeare knows that all must be restored to its place under fate's thumb when the party of dreamers awaken.
True love’s path is paved with every step. Through the assistance of fanciful elements as well as characters Puck and Oberon, the true message of love in William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is revealed. The four lovers know the direction in which their hearts are inclined to turn, but when the love potion is administered, the bounds of their rectangle are thrashed without knowledge or consent. The rapid shifts in affection between the play’s “four lovers” is representative of the idea that love isn’t a conscious choice, but a cruel game in which we are the figurines, being controlled by whomever the player may be, relating the characters’ karmic fates.
One of his plays, ‘A midsummer’s night dream’, includes the themes of love and magic,where love is represented as a force that makes people act in irrational ways to entertain the audience in a comical and dramatic way. He used different techniques throughout the play to create a tumultuous and intriguing factor. The storyline of the play follows various couples such as Hermia and Lysander and Oberon and Titania. These couples show examples of irrational behaviours with love and magic throughout the play.
When love is in attendance it brings care, faith, affection and intimacy. This is proved true in the spectacular play A Midsummer Night's Dream written by William Shakespeare. This play displays the facts about lust, hatred, jealousy and their roles in something powerfully desirable. It is entitled love. Love is present everywhere, in every form, in every condition and even when one least expects it.
Fairies, mortals, magic, love, and hate all intertwine to make A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare a very enchanting tale, that takes the reader on a truly dream-like adventure. The action takes place in Athens, Greece in ancient times, but has the atmosphere of a land of fantasy and illusion which could be anywhere. The mischievousness and the emotions exhibited by characters in the play, along with their attempts to double-cross destiny, not only make the tale entertaining, but also help solidify one of the play’s major themes; that true love and it’s cleverly disguised counterparts can drive beings to do seemingly irrational things.
The story of A Midsummer Night's Dream was mainly about love and its abnormal dealings. In the play, Shakespeare tried to show that love is unpredictable, unreasonable, and at times is blind. The theme of love was constantly used during the play and basically everything that was said and done was related to the concept of love and its unpredictable ness. Shakespeare made all of the characters interact their lives to be based on each other’s. At first, everything was very confusing, and the characters were faced with many different problems. In the end, however, they were still able to persevere and win their true love, the love they were searching for in the first place.
Love is a very common theme that is seen in literature, and love is one of the most powerful things that can be felt for someone or something. Love can drive a person to do incredible or horrible things, and we see many forms of love that take place in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This is demonstrated in the book by many characters including Hermia and Lysander who demonstrate true love. Titania and Bottom show magical love. In the play, love is also the cause of a few broken hearts. While there is no one common definition of love that suits all of the characters, the romantic relationship in the play all leans to one simple rule laid out by Lysander, “The course of true love never did run smooth.”
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.
Shakespeare uses many different themes to present love; relationships, conflict, magic, dreams and fate. Overall, he presents it as something with the ability to make us act irrationally and foolishly. Within A Midsummer Night's Dream we see many examples of how being 'in love' can cause someone to change their perspective entirely. 'The path of true love never did run smooth' is a comment made from one of the main characters, Lysander, which sums up the play's idea that lovers always face difficult hurdles on the path to happiness and will usually turn them into madmen.
Although love is typically a positive emotion or concept, it is most often truly a more negative notion, due to its consequences. Love is known to bring people together in the beginning, but also tends to customarily pull or even break people apart by causing chaos and rivalry. The loss of love could even cause insecurities to surface. In Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, one of the lovers, Helena, is scorched by love’s misfortunes when it comes between her and her ex-lover, Demetrius.The misfortunes of love force Helena into becoming an insecure woman who allows her emotions to cloud her judgement.
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.
The hilarious play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare, tells the twisted love story of four Athenians who are caught between love and lust. The main characters: Hermia, Helena, Lysander, and Demetrius are in a ‘love square’. Hermia and Lysander are true love enthusiasts, and love each other greatly. Demetrius is in love with Hermia, and Helena, Hermia’s best friend, is deeply and madly in love with Demetrius. Hermia and Lysander try to elope in the woods because Egeus, Hermia’s father, disapproves of Lysander. Helena, hearing about their plans, tells Demetrius, and all four of them end up in the woods where Lysander’s quotation, “The course of true love never did run smooth”(28), becomes extremely evident due to several
By having two separate settings contrast one another, Shakespeare sets a distinct barrier that separates nature from people. Hermia and Lysander escape to the forest in order to be able to be together when they weren’t allowed to do so in Athens. The woods are free of social laws and embody a freedom not present in human society. The contrasting nature between Athens and the woods shows that these differences set apart the natural world and human world. The woods serve as an escape not only from the law but also from reality because nature ends up dissolving the boundaries that separate reality and illusion. While in the forest, Hermia, Lysander, Helena, and Demetrius become entangled in confusion due the effects of the love potion that has been placed on Lysander and Demetrius. Because of the love juice, men end up falling in love with Helena, which causes the question to arise of whether true love exists if it can easily be altered. The love that is experienced by Lysander, Demetrius, and Titania, while under the effects of the love potion, causes their perceptions of what is reality and illusion to become entangled due to the fact that they cannot distinguish between what they perceive and what they truthfully feel.
“The course of true love never did run smooth,” comments Lysander of love’s complications in an exchange with Hermia (Shakespeare I.i.136). Although the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream certainly deals with the difficulty of romance, it is not considered a true love story like Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare, as he unfolds the story, intentionally distances the audience from the emotions of the characters so he can caricature the anguish and burdens endured by the lovers. Through his masterful use of figurative language, Shakespeare examines the theme of the capricious and irrational nature of love.
A Midsummer Night 's Dream is a play about love. All of its action—from the escapades of Lysander, Demetrius, Hermia, and Helena in the forest, to the argument between Oberon and Titania, to the play about two lovelorn youths that Bottom and his friends perform at Duke Theseus 's marriage to Hippolyta—are motivated by love. But A Midsummer Night 's Dream is not a romance, in which the audience gets caught up in a passionate love affair between two characters. It 's a comedy, and because it 's clear from the outset that it 's a comedy and that all will turn out happily, rather than try to overcome the audience with the exquisite and overwhelming passion of love, A Midsummer Night 's Dream invites the audience to laugh at the way the passion of love can make people blind, foolish, inconstant, and desperate. At various times, the power and passion of love threatens to destroy friendships, turn men against men and women against women, and through