Theme Of Control In A Midsummer Night's Dream

Everyone can relate to control in their life. Control is when you try to get someone or something to do what you want them to do. In the book A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, Demetrius and Oberon both try to control others because of love. Demetrius is a young lover who wants to marry Hermia. Hermia’s Father Egeus allows this and wants his daughter to marry him. However, Hermia loves Lysander, so Hermia and Lysander run away. But, Helena is still trying to get Demetrius to love her again. Oberon is the king of the fairies. He has a servant named Puck who does whatever Oberon wants him to. Oberon’s wife Titania has a little Indian boy that Oberon really wants. Ultimately, Shakespeare makes the case that it is no possible to control someone else, because the effects are short lasting, and the person being controlled can rebel.

A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream shows that the results of people trying to control someone else’s actions are short lasting.In act 3 scene 2 Demetrius gets a love spell put on him to love Helena, after they run into the woods

looking for Hermia. “Flower of this purple dye/ hit with cupid's archery/ sink in the apple of his eye/ when love he doth esp/ let her shine as glorious as the sky.” (3.2.102-107) This means that Demetrius will no longer love Hermia but instead love Helena. Which shows how him trying to control Hermia was short lasting. After Puck put the love spell on Lysander instead of Demetrius,Oberon had him try and fix his mistake. “Till o’er their brows death counterfeiting sleep… Then crush this herb into Lysander's eyes.” (3.2.364-366) This shows that right after Lysander got the spell put on him Oberon had it taken off. This also goes to show that Lysander being controlled by Oberon on lasted for a small amount of time. As you can see all of the attempts of control were caused by the magical flower. Which ends up leading to the effects being temporary.
Shakespeare also shows that the person being controlled can rebel against the person trying to control them.

After Demetrius and Egeus tell Hermia she must marry Demetrius, Hermia decides to do something about it with Lysander. Lysander says, “From Athens is her house remote seven leagues… There gentle Hermia I may marry thee.” (1.1.159-161) This demonstrates how Hermia rebelled against Demetrius because, she decided to run away with Lysander, since she doesn't want to be forced to marry Demetrius. Also after Oberon sked Titanis for the Indian boy Titania turned him down. She said, “set your heart at rest/ the fairyland buys not the child of me” (2.2.122-123) This shows that Titania rebelled against her husband's request since she loved the child too much to let him go. Thus both Demetrius and Oberon discovered that when you try and control someone they can just rebel and it will leave you chasing

them.
However, Shakespeare might make it seem that you can control someone because both Demetrius and Oberon appear to be successfully controlling someone else. For example, After Demetrius got the spell put on him and falls in love with Helena, he tries to get Lysander to stop loving Helena. He says to Helena, “I say I love thee more than he can do.” (3.2.254) This demonstrates how Demetrius controls Lysander because when he wakes up the next morning, Lysander is in love with Hermia again. Which makes Demetrius think that he made Lysander stop loving Helena. IN act 4 scene 1 Oberon gets Demetrius to love helena. Demetrius says “and all faith, the virtue of my heart/ The object and pleasure of mine eye/ IS only Helena”(4.1.167-169) This means that Oberon got Demetrius to love Helena by using a love potion to create false love. However, neither Demetrius or Oberon are really in control. Demetrius isn’t actually controlling Lysander, Oberon is just putting a spell on him. And Oberon is just creating false love with the flower, which can eventually blow up in his face if the potion wears off or just goes away. This shows how even though it may seem that Demetrius and Oberon are controlling someone else’s actions they are either using the flower or someone else is controlling the person they are trying to control.
After reading A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream you can pick up on the fact that Shakespeare doesn’t think that you can successfully control another person's actions. You can tell this by looking at the results of attempts of control and how the person being controlled can disobey. Also, pretty much all of the changes are short lasting since they are caused by the magical flower. As you can tell, if you read Shakespeare's A mIdsummer’s Night’s Dream you will clearly see why I say that Shakespeare shows that you can not control someone else. So over all Shakespeare shows that your plan to control someone never really works very well… Unless you are a fairy.