Love in A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare

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What is the real definition of love? Many people have different interpretations of the small yet powerful word. However, in William Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream the definition becomes rather twisted. Pure and real love does exist within the characters but is all of the love at the end of this play authentic? Love exists in A Midsummer Night’s dream before Oberon and Puck sets magic upon others which then causes some of the true love to instantly disappear. The feeling of love in the poem is both real and fake.

In the beginning of Shakespeare’s play a man names Egeus wishes for his daughter Hermia to wed with Demetrius. However, Hermia and another man Lysander are completely and hopelessly in love. Despite what his daughter wants, he wants her to marry Demetrius. If she doesn’t wed with Demetrius her father then gives her two alternate options. These choices include to never marry any other man and be a nun or the option of facing death. At this point in the play, the love between Hermia and Lysander is quite real however if she were to wed with Demetrius her love for him would be ultimately nonexistent.

Later in the play, a character of Helena was introduced. She was a young woman of Athens who was in love with Demetrius. Demetrius and Helena were once in love, however when Demetrius met her close friend Hermia, he fell in love with her and left Helena. People who fall in love tend to love the person unconditionally, which leads to the assumption that the love between Demetrius and Helena was always one sided. Being that Helena is in love with Demetrius and his feelings were most likely lust rather than love. In which lust does eventually fade into the darkness. Real love exists for Helena towa...

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...ally marrying a man who in fact didn’t love her at all and possibly never had love for her. Equally arbitrary, Demetrius was forever under a love spell which traps him with a woman for the rest of his life. The love between the two is extremely illusory.

With a closer look you can soon determine that the happy ending is not so happy after all. In Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream true love as well as fake love are boldly defined. Lysander and Hermia as well as Oberon and Titania’s love towards one another is legitimate and honest. However the fictitious love in the play dwells down to one sole character. Demetrius is the only character who’s love is a lie in which only exists due to magical potions. Demetrius’s love for Helena will forever be just a fraudulent feeling which leads to the conclusion that forged love exists within Shakespeare’s play.

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