The Course of True Love Never Runs Smooth

While true love is treasured when achieved, its rarity can be attributed to the multitude of obstacles lovers must face. Couples often have trouble expressing their love for one another or may face challenges within the marriages. Whether it be disagreements, affection of surroundings, friendships lost, or jealousy, the quest for true love has its consequences. This concept is expressed several times in A Midsummer’s Night Dream, in the cases of many of the lovers. However, it can be argued that although complications ensue, true love is worth a life of trouble.

In the struggles of Hermia and Lysander to find a place where they can freely express their true love, it is evident that the course of something as scarce as true love always comes with obstacles. Lysander says: “How now, my love? Why is your cheek so pale? / How chance the roses there do fade so fast?” (1.1.130-131), showing that he and Hermia make a faithful couple truly showing their adoration for each other. However, Hermia’s father Egeus refuses to allow to these two lovers marry. This is the conflict Hermia faces: to disobey her father (and the Athenian law), or to mind her father’s will and allow this “edict in destiny” to lose course. “O hell, to choose love by another’s eyes!” (1.1.142), Hermia decides. Hermia chooses to follow the path her true love brings rather than to do what her father insists. In this example, complications manifest in the troubles with true love. In addition, even Titania and Oberon have difficulties

Baddam 2 maintaining the course of their true love. A long standing couple, even the king and queen of fairies face the complications true love brings from time to time: “Ever true in loving be, / and the blots of Nature’s hand” (5.1.425-426...

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...e generated due to the blindness of those who are under the effects of love.

There are many complications that can be attributed to true love. These complications affect not only the lovers but also the nature around them. Some of these complications include jealousy and misjudgment. All of these obstacles support the fact that the course of true love never runs smooth. Although true love is treasured, there are definitely hindrances and impediments that come with it. In the case of the lovers in A Midsummer’s Night Dream, they all were granted the joys of true love, but also endured the complications that came as a price. Every one of them could testify that the course of true love never has and never will run smoothly.

Works Cited

Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009. Print