William Shakespeare 's A Midsummer Night 's Dream

First of all, Helena and Demetrius are two lovers who have a very complicated love life. Helena is a young woman who falls in love with Demetrius and cares about nothing more than indulging in his presence. Helena follows Demitrius into the woods one day and conveys her love by stating that “the more you beat me, I will fawn on you” (II.i.205). Helena wants to be with the man she loves more than anything; she is ready to take any risk just to see his face and be next to him. However Demetrius despises Helena. He acts ill-natured towards her and makes it very clear that she means nothing to him. Demetrius tells Helena about his hatred towards her and states “for I am sick when I look on thee” (II.i.213). He wants Helena to know how much he loathes her and how he would never want anything to do with her. Notwithstanding their original relationship, Demetrius begins to fall in love Helena and starts seeing her in a new vision as the play progresses. Demetrius receives a spell which makes him fall deeply in love with Helena and praise her. However, even after the spell stops being effective, Demetrius develops a desire to be with Helena and even marry her. The relationship between Demetrius and Helena has many erratic times and misunderstandings until the couple finally begins to truly love each other.

Hermia and Lysander behave irrationally throughout the whole play because they’re head over heels for each other; however, their love is oppressed by both her father Egeus and the strict Athenian law. In Act 1, Scene 1 when Egeus is at court with Hermia he uses a demanding and dominating tone to state, ‘as she is mine i may dispose of her’ This causes them to act spontaneously and irrationally and as a consequence, they run away from Athens to get married. This entertains the audience by adding more conflict and complication to the story. After they elope to the forest, magic becomes the force that turns love to a dramatic and conflict filled experience that is also entertaining. Lysander acts in irrational ways when he is put under the spell of ‘Love in Idleness’ where he states how madly he loves on Helena, and how much he hates Hermia. ‘Hang off, thou cat, thou burr! Vile thing, let loose, / or I will shake thee from me like a serpent.’ Derogatory language and repetition is used to emphasise his hate toward Hermia and orders her to leave him alone. For example, in Act 3, Scene 2, Lysander has fallen in love with Helena and tells Hermia how he hates her. ‘Out, loathed medicine! O hated potion, hence!’ Conflict between characters create comedy in the play which entertains the audience because of the dramatic irony. Lysander’s insults in the statement are repetition as it is the same meaning but in different words. This language technique emphasises that Lysander wants Hermia to leave him alone.

Love and lovers, both can be described as many different things. William Shakespeare shows us this in his play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In this play we see all types of love, from passionate love to foolish love. Along with this we also see different types of lovers and pairs. Examples of these lovers come from pairs like, Hermia and Lysander, Demetrius and Helena, Titana and Bottom, and Oberon and Titana. It seems that in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare shows different types of love and lovers.

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as in many of Shakespeare's plays the main theme is love. Shakespeare presents many different aspects of love in the play. He shows how love can affect your vision of reality and make you behave in irrational ways. He presents many ways in which your behavior is affected by the different types and aspects of love. The main types of love he presents are; true love, unrequited love, sisterly love, jealous love, forced love, and parental love. Shakespeare tries to show what kinds of trouble, problems and confusion, love can get you into.

Another example of Love present in the play is unrequited love. This love is presented through the characters Helena and Demetrius. Helena is deeply in love with Demetrius, but

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.

Love is one of the most difficult mysteries of life. The difficulty of love is shown throughout A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In the play, the characters have to deal with jealousy that comes along with being in love. Love’s difficulty in the play comes from love being out of balance. Love being out of balance is a romantic situation where a difference gets in the way of happiness in the relationship. William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream demonstrates these conflicts with a little bit of humor and buoyancy. The four young Athenians have many difficulties with love. Hermia loves Lysander and Lysander returns the feelings; Helena loves Demetrius but Demetrius loves Hermia. The two men love the same women, which leaves Hermia

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,

There are copious amounts of evidence within this story to support the theme of forbidden love, the theme of love gone wrong, and the theme of unconditional love. The theme of unconditional love is nearly screaming from each line of the play. The audience is made aware of the love between Lysander and Hermia very early on. Hermia’s father wishes her to marry Demetrius and he mentions that she belongs to him and therefor if she doesn’t do as he asks he can have her killed. Despite this Hermia pleads,

This quote along with the love affairs going on between Lysander, Hermia, Demetrius and Helena may be what conveys Shakespeare’s view on romantic love as passionate, irrational and blind. Helena’s quote means that love has the ability to twist a person’s perspective on the object of their affections into something more favorable and beautiful, akin to their own fantasy as love clouds their

The biggest obstacle in this play occurs when the power of love is challenged by authority. The play starts with Theseus, duke of Athens, being eager to marry Hippolyta, who he wooed with his sword in combat. Although Theseus promises Hippolyta that he will wed her “with pomp, with triumph, with reveling,” true love between them is questionable. By starting the play with Theseus and Hippolyta, Shakespeare hints the audience of the authority involved in their marriage and leaves the audience wonder if they actually love each other. The focus is then shifted to the four lovers: Hermia, Lysander, Demetrius and Helena - by establishing the story of Hermia being forced by her father, Egeus, to marry Demetrius, when the person she actually wants to marry is Lysander. However, Egeus

Helena has always loved Demetrius and at one point in time he loved her as well, but as soon as he met Hermia, he left Helena behind in pursue of Hermia. However, Helena could not get over the lost of her love so she became desperate in her attempt to make him love her again. There trial was one not loving the other, but loving another; making their love rough and hard to look at. When it came to be known that Demetrius wanted to marry Hermia, but Hermia was going to run away, Helena decided to tell Demetrius in hopes that he would want to see her again. Furthermore, Helena hoped to be alone with Demetrius in hopes of convincing him to love her again, “The more you beat me I will fawn on you. Use me but as your spaniel: spurn me, strike me, neglect me, lose me; only give me leave (unworthy as I am) to follow you”(II.i.211-214). Helena is saying that she wants Demetrius to love her and not Hermia, so she is willing to be his dog. This was this couples biggest trial and there were many more, but there is one last couple to

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.

Shakespeare wrote hurtful things about Helena. Demetrius verbally abuses her as well as threatens physical abuse. She deals with it and still loves him. Any attention keeps her around. She doesn’t care if she gets hurt. The love that Helena has for Demetrius would withstand any natural disaster. She loves

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare explores the subjectivity of love. The play shows the absurdity of love through its characters like an episode of “MTV The Real World”: they fall in love, break up, lose friendships, and someone will ultimately look like an ass. Shakespeare’s play examines the combination of both traditional and non-traditional gender roles affecting the character’s perception of their respective romantic relationships. Shakespeare then questions whether love is real through Lysander and Helena. Shakespeare’s play as a whole demonstrates how initial perceptions of love are subject to transformation. Both the characters and the play debunk that love is static, but rather an ever metamorphosing reality.