Love: A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Lokithedestroyer
Aug 22, 2017 · 3 min read

By Braeden Bickerton

In 1595, William Shakespeare wrote a play about love called A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In the play there are many different views on love. This essay will be telling you about the main views of love from the play. Firstly, love for people changes, and it will tell you about the idea and how it relates to Lysander and Helena in the play. Secondly, in history, love and marriage were often forced by parents or conquerors because they thought that they were smarter and knew what is best for love. Theseus and Egeus both forced love and marriage on somebody else so they are good examples.

In a Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare wants to show us that love is unpredictable. He wants us to feel that love is ever-changing and that you can change your mind quickly just upon seeing some other person. In the story, Helena and Demetrius used to be a couple, but when Demetrius sees Hermia, he just dumps Helena. Also in the story, Lysander says “The course of true love did never run smooth.”, which implies that he also thinks that love changes. Through the use of these characters, Shakespeare shows us the fact that love is unpredictable. This happens in real life all the time, what with relationships getting formed and broken every day.

Another thing that Shakespeare wants to show us is that forced love is not a good thing. To elaborate on that, the two people who force love don’t come out well or they just create problems. In the play, Theseus, who is the ruler of Athens, has conquered a place and taken the queen to marry her against her will. This goes back against him when near the end of the movie, he dies of a heart failure that the queen person caused because she is actually a magical fairie. Also, Egeus, the father of Hermia, wants Hermia to marry Demetrius, but Hermia wants to marry Lysander and they run off alone, and Hermia now hates her father, so it’s like he lost a daughter. This shows us that forced love is not a good thing, because the relationships are not happy and will probably end up with one or both of the people coming out of it badly. This makes me think of a long time ago, when women hardly had any rights and this type of stuff would happen.

So, in conclusion, there were many views on love in the play. Lysander and Helena either think or know that “The course of true love did never run true.”, and Theseus and Egeus have both tried to force marriages but have come out of it badly. The moral of the play is that you should not interfere with love, but let it run like a river, in its own way.

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