Irony In A Midsummer Night's Dream By William Shakespeare

Love can be observed in many different lights. This infatuation can be viewed through the eyes of high schoolers believing that their beloved significant other will be their soul mate, through the eyes of a newlywed admiring their spouse for all of the extravagant romantic gestures, or through the eyes of an elderly couple simply grateful for the memories made with their loved one. Most people grow up dreaming of meeting their true love and riding off into the sunset on beautiful white horses, but most often love does not happen in this fashion. People often find their significant other in arbitrary places like the grocery store or in an office, which violates the euphoric societal dream of the first romantic encounter. This ironic breaking

Beginning the poem with a direct possessive pronoun from the speaker being “my love” (1) instantly sets the tone for the poem. The possessive pronoun states that he owns her, similar to a piece of property, which personifies the man as being in charge. Yet, her deceit expurgates this idea because he cannot truly be the aggressive significant other in the relationship if he cannot even simply suppress the lies from the woman’s lips. This ironic paradox does not stop at the first line of the poem, but continues throughout by relating back to the man being pitied due to the woman’s lies, despite him owning her. He subjects himself into this situation due to his belief in their love being the true love that society pushes for everyone to strive for, but subconsciously he knows that this relationship impairs his mental health. He “know[s] [that] she lies” (2), yet continues to “believe her” (2) due to this societal pressure of needing to be in a relationship. This pressure of furthering the relationship despite its obvious concerns adds to the irony within the relationship because both people have realized that the relationship damages their mental health. The man even subconsciously changes his vocabulary to attempt to make the woman’s claims against him of being “some untutored youth” (3) incorrect, but ironically learns a new and incorrect way to spell unlearned as “unlearnèd” (4). The man attempts to adapt to the constraints of the relationship, but ultimately corrupts his mindset to the point of spelling simplistic words wrong. But, the purpose of Shakespeare’s poem is not to show pity for the man, but to expose the true irony within the relationship. The man also commits a direct act of irony by “vainly thinking” about her idea of himself. The word vain itself is to think about oneself, not to think about what others think. This paradox