Different Types Of Love In ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’
In the story “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” written by Williams Shakespeare love appears in many different ways throughout the story. The different types of love are romantic love, parental love, friendly love, unrequited love, argumentative love, official love, and passionate love just to name a few.
One of many types of loves in the play was parental love between Egeus and Hermia. Egus’s personality is very strict and commanding towards Hermia. This love shows that he believes the father is the leader and the boss of the household, and Egus values that strongly. Forbidden love is another form of love that branches from Parental love. Egus insists to Hermia that she should marry Demetrius, and stated in Athenian law Egus has the right to pick the person he wants her to marry. Hermia does not want to marry Demetrius, so he takes her to Theseus who tells her she should listen to her father, instead of facing chances of being killed. Hermia decides to run away into the forest in hope to meet up with Lysander, the person whom she really loves.
Another form of love in the play is true love, this love is between Lysander and Hermia. Even though her father Egus does not want Hermia to marry Lysander and wants her to marry Demetrius, she still tries everything she can to be with him even if it means her death. Even after her father request, and demand she marries Demetrius, she runs away into the woods to find Lysander. Lysander shows his true love to Hermia by fighting over her with Demetrious because he loves her, this shows true love between the couple.
Complicated love is seen in the play between four characters who are extremely in love with one another. It is considered complicated because Hermia and Lysander are madly in love with each other, and Helena is in love with Demetrius, but he does not like her. It becomes even more complicated as the play goes on because punk “The mischievous fairy” accidently puts a love potion onto Lysanders eyelids. When Lysander finally wakes up he sees Helena and immediately falls in love with her. The same potion of love was later put on to Demetrius’s eyelid, and he also falls in love with Helena. Now both Lysander and Demetrius are madly in love with Helena, this soon sparks a confusion between Hermia and Helena. Towards the end of the play, all four characters end up getting what was originally planned which was Hermia with Lysander, and Helena with Demetrius.
Unrequited love in the play is between Demetrius and Helena. This love was one of the most painful, and saddest form of love throughout the play. Helena was extremely in love with Demetrius and would do anything for him, even give up to get Demetrius’s love, he wanted nothing to do with Helena and hated her the more she tired to love him. Demetrius and Helena were meant to love each other in the end, because if they had not fallen in love due to the potion, the play wouldn’t have ended the way that it did without any conflict between who loved who. The last type of love in Shakespeare’s play is jealous love between Oberon and Titania. The two are not on good terms due to an argument about the changeling boy, the son of Titania’s friends. Oberon wants to take the boy, but Titania does not want to give him to Oberon, this makes Oberon’s jealousy grow Oberon decides to take matter into his hands and take revenge on Titania. Oberon soon gets into touch with Puck, who is his servant fairy that likes to play tricks to discuss his revenge. He tells puck to come up with a potion that will make Titania fall in love with the first thing she sees, and wanted the first thing that she sees to be an ass.
Shakespeare presented love in so many ways throughout “Midsummer Night’s Dream”. It shows us that love has its twist and turns, and may never go as smooth as we imagine it, and he also shows us there is no such thing as picture perfect relationships. This play demonstrates how jealousy can cause people to do crazy things, and how quickly it could ruin a relationship. Demetrius and Helena were never originally supposed to be a thing, only because of the help of the potion that everyone was able to live happily ever after. The play also teaches us as readers that love is an essential part of our lives on earth, just like Lysander and Hermia, and Demetrius and Helena, love is very unpredictable, and the end result might shock and surprise us.
