Love And Relationships in a Midsummer’s Night Dream And The Fault in Our Stars
In the play A Midsummers Night Dream and the novel The Fault In Our Stars there is a main focus on young lovers. There is also a huge change throughout the stories of character development and theme. This essay will feature a brief summary of each story and how the ending contributes to the theme and character development.
The play A Midsummers Night Dream is about four young Athenian lovers named Lysander, Demetrius, Helena and Hermia that run away from Athens to elope in the forest. Throughout the story, there are magical fairies that change how the characters see each other. For example, one of the fairies named Oberon uses a love potion on multiple people so that they would fall in love with the first person they see when the wake up. This changes the character’s development. For example, Lysander was affected by the love potion which made him fall in love with Helena. Due to this potion, there is now another one of many love triangles. In this case, it’s Lysander, Helena and Demetrius. Due to the supernatural aspect of the play, character development has changed in the ending for a few people. At the beginning of the play, Helena was not loved by anyone. She felt lonely and she would literally be abused just to be with the person of her dreams. A quote for this is “I’ll follow thee and make a heaven of hell, To die upon the hand I love so well.” Due to Oberon placing this potion on Lysander and Demetrius being in love with her, she felt like she was being pranked by the men. A quote from this is “You do advance your cunning more and more. When truth kills truth, O devilish holy fray! These vows are Hermia’s. Will you give her o’er? Weigh oath with oath, and you will nothing weigh. Your vows to her and me, put in two scales,Will even weigh, and both as light as tales.” This means that Helena is shocked about Lysander betraying Hermia. This connects to the character development because Helena was once a desperate lover and then she changed into someone who cannot believe that people love her. She went from having a low self esteem to having a high one.
The novel The Fault In Our Stars is about a young girl named Hazel Grace. Sadly, she has cancer. One day, she meets a boy named Augustus in a support group. They then became really good friends. As their relationship goes on, Augustus wants to use his “wish” on going to Amsterdam with Hazel to meet their favorite author named Peter Van Houten. After a while their wish came true. As the trip went on, Augustus and Hazel fell in love with each other. By this point what could go wrong? Sadly, they found out that Peter was a drunk and rude old man. Once they returned back to Indianapolis, things turned for the worst. Augustus found out that his cancer has return and he was not able to fight this battle. Over time, Hazel and Augustus spent their last minutes together and sadly Augustus dies. This ending changed the development of Hazel. She finally fell in love with the boy she loves but now he’s gone. This has turned Hazel into a strong woman and she realized that life is short. A quote to support this is “I want more numbers than I’m likely to get, and God, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got. But Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I’m grateful.” This means that Hazel is thankful for what Augustus has done for her and that life is short and you need to appreciate the thing around you. She has also learned to be happy during a time of grieving. In the novel Peter Van Houten made an alternate ending to his book which included Augustus’s eulogy. She then felt really happy which matured her through this hard part of her life.
In some ways, A Midsummers Night Dream and The Fault In Our Stars are alike. They both involve teenages turning tragity into something that is happy. In A Midsummers Night Dream, there was a giant love triangle between Lysander, Helena and Demetrius. This ended up having a lot arguments and fighting. During the ending of the play, they all got together to watch Peter Quince’s play. The play was so bad that people were laughing and having a good time. Due to this play, the love triangle ended up ending and everything became neutral. For example, the quote “More than to us Wait in your royal walks, your board, your bed!” shows that Lysander is now in a good mood with everyone. In the novel The Fault In Our Stars, Hazel had to deal with the grief of Augustus’s death. After Hazel found a notebook under his notebook stating that he loved her, she became happy and less depressed. A quote to support this is the very last words from the book “I do Augustus. I do.” This shows that after all of the stress and the death of her crush, she has prevailed and has remembered the good memories she has had with him.
In conclusion, A Midsummers Night Dream and The Fault In Our Stars have a huge change of character development in the ending. In A Midsummers Night Dream, they have gone through an affair, multiple love triangles and being wanted by the city of Athens. After all of this, all the characters became happy after a simple play. In The Fault In Our Stars, Hazel Grace went through the death of her life long lover and at the same time she had cancer. She then became a stronger and more humble woman after finding Augustus’s notebook. These pieces of literature is a perfect example for teens to realize the importance of love and also it shows teens how to handle death and arguments through it’s amazing way of being written.
