A Midsummer Night’s Dream: The Variations of Love

Love is only as strong as the people who share it. In William Shakespeare’s play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, there are relationships from all different viewpoints of love. Four Athenian lovers are caught in a web of love for the wrong person, according to fellow peevish characters. Along the story line of the play, one will be introduced to additional characters that try to be helpful by committing acts they presume will benefit the young lovers, but these characters actually create plot-twists. Also, there are other characters that have the authority to change whatever they feel is necessary without thinking twice. Furthermore, throughout this humored play, Shakespeare portrays various forms of love through arranged marriages, forbidden love, magically tampered love, and unanticipated romances to show how there’s no right or wrong way to love someone.

In the first scene of the play you are introduced to the duke of Athens, Theseus, who lays down the law for Hermia. Hermia, the daughter of Egeus, desires to go against her father’s wishes of marrying Demetrius, and instead marry Lysander. Theseus firmly states to Hermia, “Either to die the death or to abjure forever the society of men”; which simply put, Theseus gives Hermia the option to die or to no longer enjoy the company of men (Crowther). Furthermore he means to send her to a nunnery. This exemplifies the first variation of love within this play: arranged love, i.e. arranged marriage. Theseus then gives the order to Hermia that she must have her decision by his own wedding day with Hippolyta, thus giving her four days to decide her fate.

With that order, Lysander and Hermia come to make a rather rash decision. They decide to meet in the forest outside of the city of Ath...

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... love, though can only be found in fantasies, provides a rush; unexpected love gives a sense to people that maybe everything that happened in the past was leading up to this. To sum up the play it is easiest for one to say, “in the dark, with love on the brain, the mind can play tricks and the trees and bushes of the forest can seem to be more than they are” (Dowd) .

Works Cited

Crowther, John, ed. “No Fear A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2005. Web. 24 Feb. 2014.

Dowd, Michelle M. "Shakespeare's Sleeping Workers." Shakespeare Studies 41.(2013): 148-176. Literary Reference Center. Web. 26 Feb. 2014.

Kerr, Calum A. "Literary Contexts In Plays: William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Literary Contexts In Plays: William Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' (2008): 1. Literary Reference Center. Web. 26 Feb. 2014.