Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream may lead you to think controlling someone is easy, but this storyline could change your mind. For the duration of the play, the characters are constantly fighting for control, after a very difficult endeavor, characters finally gain dominance over each other. In the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare uses the characters Oberon and Titania to show how you can genuinely control someone’s actions by emotional manipulation and coercion.
One way Oberon controls Titania with magic for emotional manipulation is when Oberon wants to make Titania fall in love with a creature for his own benefit. He uses the magic of cupid’s arrow to make her fall in love, so she gives him the Indian boy he desperately
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Once he decides his plan to get the boy, he tells Robin, “Whiles I in this affair do thee employ,/I’ll to my queen and beg her Indian boy;/ And then I will her charmèd eye release/ From monster’s view, and all things shall be peace.” (3.2.395-399) This explains to the audience that he intends to release her from the charm, Oberon gets the Indian boy, and Titania goes with Oberon to the wedding.
Some may argue that Shakespeare displayed that you in fact can control others, but in the play, Oberon initially fails to persuade Titania into giving him the Indian boy. Oberon says, “Give me that boy and I will go with thee.”(2.1.148) Titania refutes, saying, “Not for thy fairy kingdom.—Fairies, away!/ We shall chide downright, if I longer stay.” (2.1.129-130) While it is true characters have controlled others in the play, for example, “And now I have the boy, I will undo/ This hateful imperfection of her eyes.” (4.1.62-62), ultimately Titania relinquishes the Indian boy and Oberon gets what he