Love In A Midsummer Night's Dream Essay

“The course of true love never did run smooth” (MSND Act I, scene i, line 134) This line is spoken by Lysander, one of the lovers from Shakespeare’s classic play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is a pinnacle in describing the conflict found in love during the play. As mentioned, conflict in love is a characteristic that recurs throughout many of Shakespeare’s plays. The struggles of love include, but are not limited to, outside forces tricking lovers, and disagreements between lovers. Love is of many funny things, and one of those could be the outside difficulties that lovers face in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. One example of these difficulties is when Hermia will be forced to marry Demetrius against her will: “Upon that day either prepare to die For disobedience to your father’s will, Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would, Or on Diana’s altar to protest For aye austerity and single life” (MSND Act I, scene

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream this is mainly followed through by the idea that many of the lovers are either not interested in the other or are, but cannot get their love back. A very shocking example of this is when Helena is desperate for Demetrius’s love, but he shows detest in her, “I am your spaniel. And, Demetrius, 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” (MSND Act II, scene i, lines 188-192). This shows how driven by her love for Demetrius that Helena lets her love thrive on his punishment of her. And this only gets crazier once the love potion drives Lysander and Demetrius to love Helena, and then Hermia is enraged by her negligence, and hops onto Lysander: “Away, you Ethiope!”...”Hang off, thou cat, thou burr! Vile thing, let loose Or I will shake thee from me like a serpent” (MSND Act III, scene ii, lines 264-269). This is how maddened everyone gets just by the switch of