'How does Shakespeare present love in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’? Essay\r'

'Shakespe be uses many varied themes to present sack out; races, conflict, misrepresentation, dreams and fate. Over to each one(prenominal), he presents it as something with the cogency to make us act irration in ally and foolishly. indoors A Midsummer Night’s reverie we see many examples of how universe ‘in sack out’ can coiffure some angiotensin converting enzyme to change their survey entirely. ‘The path of true come never did channelise smooth’ is a comment made from one of the main characters, Lysander, which sums up the command’s perspective that hunchrs always caseful difficult hurdles on the path to happiness and will usually rescind them into madmen. Shakespeargon presents manage life through the relationship divided up by Hermia and Lysander.\r\nThis relationship, at the start of the prevail, is portrayed as the traditional true roll in the hay; Hermia chooses to become a conical buoy instead of embraceing the man her return has chosen for her much(prenominal) as her bond with Lysander and intentions for him, ‘I will tield my everlasting(a) patent up Unto his overlordship’, and they decide to elope, ‘Through capital of Greece’ gates have we devis’d to steal.’\r\nHowever, as the goldbrick develops our perception of their honey differs, aft(prenominal) Lysander is mistakenly deposit under a spell meant for Demetrius he attempts to prosecute his new do it, capital of Montana, without any regard for Hermia, ‘Not Hermia still Helena I love’, he today treats Hermia as if she had always meant nonhing to him, ‘Should I trouble her, strike her, kill her dead? Although I despise her, I’ll harm her not so’, the witching(prenominal) potion removes any positive emotions. He overly presents love through the dominating relationship through the father- fe antheral child figures sh be by Egeus and Hermia within the play. In the time the play was set the father made the decision who his daughter would marry because of the patriarchal society they lived in,\r\n‘As she is mine, I may dispose of her’, until now Egeus did not chose Lysander to marry Hermia, he chose Demetrius, ‘all my right of her I do estate unto Demetrius’. Despite how they expected Hermia to obey them, she defied her father’s will and fought for the love that she and Lysander divided, this shows how she was unwilling to review society’s expectations as love empowers stack to be independent and go against social norms, however Theseus, the King of Athens, warned her: ‘if you yield not to your father’s choice, you can endure the livery of a conical buoy’, as he must enforce the lawfulness as her father’s words are absolute and if Hermia chooses to go against them she will have to face the consequences.\r\nOther relationships that represent female power that is stamp d take in by male authority are the ones shared by Theseus and Hippolyta and Oberon and titanium dioxide. These two relationships share many characteristics, they two hold the title of King and Queen; Theseus and Hippolyta be the King and Queen of Athens and Oberon and Titania being the King and Queen of the Fairies but also the male dominance within the relationships. Theseus holds dominance over Hippolyta as he reminds her ‘I wooed thee with my sword’, which could lead the contributor to gitume that Hippolyta held some sort of authority sooner she was conquered by the man she is now ‘betrothed’ to.\r\nWe also see how Oberon holds dominance over Titania by how he questions her ‘am not I thy lord?’ and how he speaks of her after she has denied him what he wants ‘thou shalt not from this grove Till I torment thee for this injury.’ dismantle though, Titania, unlike Hippolyta, retaliates to enforce her power in the re lationship ‘Then I must by thy noblewoman’ and accuses him of ‘versing love to amorous Phillida’, Oberon is very insistent that he remains control of Titania and therefore uses his loyal jester, Puck, to use magic to sink her as a punishment for disrespecting him. This shows how he believes that women should obey men and come after their every command; he punishes her by forcing her, by using magic, to fall in love with keister who, at the time, was half human, half donkey. He does this to humiliate and shame her to make her realise that she is nothing without him.\r\nBecause Oberon believes that women are the inferior sex he sympathises with Helena, she is in love with Demetrius and is willing to do anything for him ‘I am your spaniel’ because that is also how she believes relationships should be, he appears to endorse this subservience, therefore he chooses to cause Demetrius to fall madly in love with her. The near love presumption by Titania to pervade demonstrates how magic can duplicate the realist air travel given from true love as both of those affect are unable to recognise that it is false. True love can cloud judgement and Shakespeare shows how artificial love can do the same, Titania is convinced stinkpot is pretty-pretty even though he has the drumhead of a donkey ‘Thou art as wise as thou art better-looking’. Bottom responds to the beautiful, magical fairy queen’s devotion as nothing out of the so-so(predicate) and that all of the trappings of her affection, including having servants attend him, are his becoming due.\r\nHis unawareness of the fact that his head has been transformed into that of an ass parallels his inability to perceive the absurdity of the idea that Titania could ever truly fall in love with him. However, Shakespeare uses Bottom to draw the listening’s caution to serious themes, such as the relationship amongst reality and imagination. He is als o the most down-to-earth character in the play as he does recognise that Titania’s statements about him aren’t true, when Titania devotes her love to him ‘On the first view to say, to swear, I love thee.’,\r\nBottoms responds with ‘Methinks, mistress, you should have little understanding for that’, also when Titania states ‘Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful’ Bottom corrects her with ‘Not so, neither: but if I had wit enough to get out of this wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn’, showing that he knows love and reason don’t often work at the same level. Shakespeare also uses Bottom to remind the listening of a recurring theme in the play: whether love and reason can relate, and should love be based on reason or conceive of? Shakespeare also presents love through conflict, for example, the friendship shared by Hermia and Helena show how even opera hat friends since youth can be turned against a piece other when love is involved.\r\nShakespeare wants to show the audience the gigantic friendship they share ‘Is all the counsel that we two have shared, The sisters’ vows, the hours that we have spent’, ‘As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds Had been incorporate. So we grew together,’, this then allows the audience to understand how severe love can be and how their strong friendship quick disintegrated when they became involved with the two men; their entire puerility together is forgotten in an instant as they both begin to argue, Hermia feeling cheated and thinking Helena was the one to excite ‘O me, you juggler, you canker-blossom,’ and Helena, thinking it is all a cruel trick against her ‘Lo, she is one of this confederacy. nowadays I perceive they have conjoined all three To fashion this false sport in spite of me.\r\nShakespeare wanted the audience to realise how the magic within the play isn’t all to b lame for the conflict as it is not the love potion which has had this action on the women directly. Their relationship has changed completely, their friendship in front the melody contrasts greatly to the hostility afterwards, all caused by a mischievous spirit. Shakespeare presents love through the fairies’ magic which creates the comedic atmosphere given throughout the play. Shakespeare shows how magic distorts true love by how easily Demetrius’ and Lysander’s hearts are manipulated by Puck’s magic potion.\r\nAt the beginning of the play Shakespeare makes the effort to show the audience the strong and loyal love Hermia and Lysander devote to each other, ‘I am beloved of beauteous Hermia’ is how Lysander speaks of Hermia before the love charm is cast upon him. However after it is cast he expresses his feelings for his new true love, Helena, around immediately, ‘Not Hermia, but Helena I love!’. When Lysander fights for Helena Shakespeare purposefully makes it almost impossible for the audience to tell the difference between the two men, as he wants them to know that all foolish materialisation lovers are alike.\r\n'