3 Types Of Love In A Midsummer Night's Dream

3 Types of Love from the play, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by: William Shakespeare

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is a play based on a romantic love story. In this play, there are several types of love displayed between several of the main characters in the play. One of the most famous quotes from the play was by Lysander and it was “The course of true love never did run smooth” (Act 1, Scene 1). This meant that with any type of love, a person will experience its ups and downs, they will agree to disagree, but more importantly, love is unpredictable. Parenteral love, forced love, and true love are 3 types of love displayed/expressed in the play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Parenteral love is displayed between Egeus and Hermia. Egeus is the

father of Hermia and wants his daughter to marry Demetrius, but, she wants to marry Lysander instead. No one will really understand “parenteral love” until they have children themselves. A parents’ love for their child is unconditional and every parent wants what’s best for their child. Egeus felt that Demetrius was a better pick for his daughter and if she didn’t obey him he was going to punish her and he quoted “As she is mine, I will dispose of her” (Act 1, Scene 1). That reminds me of something my mom use to say to me when I was being disobedient. She said, “I brought you in this world and I will take you out.”
True love is another type of love that is expressed in the play by Hermia and Lysander.

Although Hermia’s father did not want her to marry Lysander, she was madly in love with him and wanted to go against her fathers’ wishes just to be with him, and she did just that. By the end of the play, Hermia and Lysander’s relationship with one another was a success. True love is defined as a love worth fighting for and that is exactly what Hermia and Lysander did, they fought for each other.

Forced love was displayed was also another type of love displayed in the play as well. Theseus forced Hippolyta to marry him after he captured her. Hippolyta was the queen of the Amazons. Theseus quoted “I woo’ed thee with my sword/ and won thy love doing thee injuries” (Act 1. Scene 1) Theseus obviously felt that because he conquered Hippolyta, she was obligated to marry him. Another example of forced love was when Egeus was trying to force his daughter, Hermia to marry a man that she didn’t want to.

The play expressed several more types of love, but I have written and gave examples of just 3. Love is defined as an intense feeling of deep affection and many of the characters in the play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” showed just that. Love is not always perfect and people go through different obstacles when they are in love with one another. No matter what kind of love was displayed in the play, “Love prevails over

all!”