Love In A Midsummer Night’s Dream
The comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is an interesting story involving dreams, nature, and love. Within the play there are examples of structured, foolish, and changeable love. Shakespeare uses the theme of love by showing the difficult sides of what love really is. In A Midsummer's Night's Dream, William Shakespeare shows the strength and unpredictability of the power of love through the choices made by the characters in the play.
Theseus, Duke of Athens, and Hippolyta, Queen of Amazon, are the first example of love shown in A Midsummer Night’s dream. Their love is one that is forced, but a strong example of an understanding and traditional type of love, considering many people in that time were targets of arranged marriages. An example of how their love is forced is when Theseus says, “Hippolyta, I wooed thee with my sword and won thy love doing thee injuries, but I will wed thee in another key” (Shakespeare 1.1.16-18). By that, Theseus is discussing with Hippolyta that, although their marriage is a result from his winning of a war through violence, they will marry on a happier note. They are considered a model couple because they are obligated to marry each other, and obey their obligation with maturity and kindness.
The next example of love shown in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is through the couple Hermia and Lysander. They demonstrate true love being put to a test. Egeus, Hermia’s father, denies the marriage of Hermia and Lysander because he does not feel as though he is fit for marriage. Egeus arranges for Hermia to marry Demetrius but because she does not want to marry him she is given an ultimatum: to marry Demetrius or face execution. Hermia chooses execution, resulting in her running off to elope in the woods with Lysander. Lysander stated, “The course of true love never did run smooth, but either it was different in blood” (1.1. 136). Lysander is saying that even true love, such as his and Hermia’s,...