Essay about William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream

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.

Above all the tensions created by the discussion of marriage, Lysander deliver a quotes to his love Hermia. “The course of true love never did run smooth…” (Act 1, Scene 1, line 134) is a famous quote by Lysander. In the quote he conveys to readers that love is not perfect, it also has its ups and downs and that he and Hermia are going through a tough situation. Hermia and Lysander both love each other and have made a plan to meet in a forest and then escape Athens however the problem arises when Hermia has tells Helena this and she plans to tell Demetrius about this so that he will love her and not Hermia. The King of fairies− Oberon hears all this and decides to settle the dispute between all of them. He instructs his assistant Robin Goodfellow to search for Demetrius and put the love juice on his eyelids so that he is compelled to love Helena, he informs him about the dressing style of Demetrius in "thou shalt know the man by the Athenian garments he hath on" (Act 2, Scene 1, line 263-264). However there is a problem, in the forest there are two Athenian men dressed in Athenian garments and their identities were mistaken; instead of putting the love juice on Demetrius's eyelids Robin Goodfellow put it on Lysander's eyelids. Now Lysander "loves" Helena and wants to get away from Hermia. After discovering Robin Goodfellow's mistake, Oberon tries to correct this mistake by putting the same love juice in Demetrius's so that he loves Helena eyes however

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.

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.

Love comes with many complications and faces many obstacles. Shakespeare clearly portrays illustrates these difficulties this them through various relationships in his play, ‘A Midsummer Night's Dream’. The characters face different obstacles which affect their relationships negatively. In the play, ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ the main obstacles that cause negative effects on love are the use of magic, the law, and misunderstandings as well as and false assumptions.

Hermia’s love for Lysander can be seen as genuine as she states ‘I would my father looked but with my eyes’ which means she wishes her father could see Lysander the way she does. This suggests that she is not under his spell as she truly sees him with her own eyes, and loves him. The audience also sees that she is very passionate about Lysander, as she chooses to ‘yield my virgin patent up’ and live the life of a nun or die rather than ‘wed Demetrius’. We also see the love between Lysander and Hermia is genuine later in Act 1 Scene 1 when ‘Exeunt all but Lysander and Hermia’, as it appears that Lysander is finishing Hermia’s sentences, indicating they are very familiar with each other, and he is comforting her lovingly. Lysander also states ‘true love never did run smooth’ which suggests they truly believe what they feel is true love. Another technique used by Shakespeare to emphasise their love is vivid imagery. Hermia’s speech declaring that she would meet Lysander in ‘the wood’ is filled with imagery suggesting love and passion, such as ‘by Cupid’s strongest bow’ and her reference to the Greek Goddess Venus: ‘By the simplicity of Venus’ doves’, emphasises her passion for Lysander.

In many of Shakespeare’s literary works one can find multiple themes that reflect or question our reality. He accomplishes this by using figurative language such as metaphors and similes. Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream encompasses many themes and apply them to certain characters or through communication between multiple characters. Helena portrays themes of love, betrayal, jealousy, and gender norms in Midsummer Night’s Dream presenting them through her speech and behavior. She depicts the challenges of a woman and also the flaws of human nature. In Act 2 scene 1 and Act 3 scene 2 Helena uses a metaphor twice which emulates these themes presenting us a broader understanding of her representation within the play and the play as a whole. Following are lines from Helena.

Lysander and Demetrius both love Hermia. Both of them are willing fight for her. “ I am, my lord, as well derived as he, As well possessed. My love is more than his. My fortunes every way as fairly ranked, (If not with vantage) as Demetrius'. And—which is more than all these boasts can be—

Eyes In William Shakespeares play A Midsummer Nights dream. The symbol eyes comes up often in the play. Eyes are a symbol for lack of perception because the book states that eyes are a symbol for lack of perception. For instance in the play when Hermia is talking to Thesus and says " I would [but] my father looked but with my eyes"(1.1.55-60).

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.

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare emphasises the idea of different versions of what could be reality, by switching our beliefs to think that mythical creatures are real, making a pathway to the other possible illusions.

Imagery is an important factor to understanding this play, it is used for language and description that appeals to the five senses. Nature is one of the key setting for this play, it symbolizes beauty and represents time and disorder. For the collage many pictures were used to symbolize these, one of the pictures included a beautiful woman this is to showcase beauty. In "Midsummer Night's Dream" Lysander compares Helena to tiery stars in a night sky, William Shakespare uses nature to describe the beauty of many females in the play. Demetrius also compares Helena's lips to cherries and her hands to pure white snow, "Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow!, That pure congealèd white, high Taurus' snow,"(Act 3 Scene 2), this shows the relationship between nature and beauty as nature's characteristics are being used to describe Helena's beauty in the play. The imagery of nature also represents time as the waxing and waning moon signifies morning, the collage showcases many pictures of natures beauty and the different seasons in the collage represent the different days and time. The clock in the collage is used to represent time shown in the play, "Four days will quickly steep themselves in night. Four nights will

This demonstrates how there is money and power involved in the story. Egeus, Hermia’s father, removes all of her power. Egeus has her power and controls his daughter, Hermia. In the story, Egeus arranges her marriage with someone whom she doesn’t love, and he doesn’t let her marry who she loves, Lysander. Not only that, but also shows how money also is being used in the story.

An example of this is the moon, the symbolism of which is reflected in the title, the midnight setting and inspires open air performances. Purpose-built playhouses served as a stage in Elizabethan times and were located outside the City, and ‘where the central acts of A Midsummer Night’s Dream take place: a location beyond authorized boundaries, where game-playing and role-playing are freely possible’ (Hackett, 2000, p.33). The moon is symbolic of time, chastity and sexual desire. Its importance within this extract is emphasised with the use of both alliteration ‘The moon, methinks’ (Line 170) and personification, ‘looks with wat’ry eye,’ (Lines 179). This personification of the moon is then linked by repetition to the personification of a flower, a symbolic reference to the female, ‘And when she [the moon] weeps, weeps every little flower / Lamenting some enforced chastity’ (Lines 180-1). It is a reference to Theseus’s warning to Hermia in Act 1, Scene 1, that if she refuses to marry Demetrius she will ‘endure the livery of a nun’ (REF NORTON HERE). Another example of symbolic meaning in this extract is Titania. The presentation of her as a woman of high status and importance is reflective of Queen Elizabeth. A critic of Elizabethan writing, Louis Montrose, argues that ‘moments of textual disclosure also illuminate the interplay between gender politics in the Elizabethan

3. Egeus wants to complain to Theseus about his daughter Hermia. Egeus wants her to marry Demetrius but she is in love with Lysander. He wants her to choose either Demetrius or death.