In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare puts a heavy emphasis on the idea of love. In the very first act of the play, one of his characters, Lysander, speaks the line, “The course of true love never did run smooth.” As the play carries on, it becomes clear that Lysander is correct. The love in this story is shown to be true, but there are obstacles that the couples must overcome to sustain their love. It is shown multiple times that love is not always what is best for someone and can sometimes put them at risk. So, Shakespeare proves his point by showing that his characters can make it through hardships and have their love for one another still be true. Through the experiences of overcoming obstacles such as hypermasculinity, irrationality,
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One reason that conflict arises from true love is because such a strong emotion is liable to cause a character to make an irrational decision that they would not have made otherwise. Bottom even says, “And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.” (3.1.71-72). This quote is further proven throughout the story as characters are constantly making decisions based in their emotions. An example that exemplifies this is at the beginning of the story. Lysander decides to run away with Hermia so that she can escape the options that Theseus gave her. He is well aware of the fact that running away endangers Hermia’s life, yet he does it anyways because he is willing to do anything to fulfill their love. As shown throughout history, where there is irrational choices, there is fighting, the same is true for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. At the end of Act I Helena decides to tell Demetrius that Hermia and Lysander plan on running away to get married, which leads to an intense rivalry between Lysander and Demetrius. Ruth Nevo, the author of Fancy’s Images states, “What we are invited to perceive is a falling out among rivals, and what we are invited to infer is that, at a deeper psychic level than they are aware of, they do indeed know what they want: each wants what his brother-at-arms or rival has.” (Nevo 6). A final example of love creating irrationality in the story is in the story of Oberon and Titania. Oberon is jealous of the attention that Titania gives to the changeling boy. So in order to retain the love of Titania, Oberon tries to eliminate the ‘threat’ the changeling child proposes to the relationship of the fairies by acquiring the boy for himself. In order to do this, he makes Titania fall out of love with him and in love with a disfigured Bottom. Oberon was willing to go far enough as to lose his love temporarily to ensure that he had her
One reason that conflict arises from true love is because such a strong emotion is liable to cause a character to make an irrational decision that they would not have made otherwise. Bottom even says, “And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.” (3.1.71-72). This quote is further proven throughout the story as characters are constantly making decisions based in their emotions. An example that exemplifies this is at the beginning of the story. Lysander decides to run away with Hermia so that she can escape the options that Theseus gave her. He is well aware of the fact that running away endangers Hermia’s life, yet he does it anyways because he is willing to do anything to fulfill their love. As shown throughout history, where there is irrational choices, there is fighting, the same is true for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. At the end of Act I Helena decides to tell Demetrius that Hermia and Lysander plan on running away to get married, which leads to an intense rivalry between Lysander and Demetrius. Ruth Nevo, the author of Fancy’s Images states, “What we are invited to perceive is a falling out among rivals, and what we are invited to infer is that, at a deeper psychic level than they are aware of, they do indeed know what they want: each wants what his brother-at-arms or rival has.” (Nevo 6). A final example of love creating irrationality in the story is in the story of Oberon and Titania. Oberon is jealous of the attention that Titania gives to the changeling boy. So in order to retain the love of Titania, Oberon tries to eliminate the ‘threat’ the changeling child proposes to the relationship of the fairies by acquiring the boy for himself. In order to do this, he makes Titania fall out of love with him and in love with a disfigured Bottom. Oberon was willing to go far enough as to lose his love temporarily to ensure that he had her