A Midsummer Night's Dream Essay

In William Shakespeare 's A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the plot revolves around love and the drama that accompanies it. Hermia and Lysander, two Athenian lovers, are forbidden to be together by Egeus, the father of Hermia. To avoid the punishments of Egeus and Athenian law, the lovers flee to the woods. They face the difficulty of love when Puck, the mischievous servant of fairy king Oberon, mistakenly drips a love potion into the eyes of Lysander, who falls in love with the first creature he sees upon awakening- another Athenian woman named Helena. Simultaneously, Oberon, the fairy king, and Titania, the fairy queen struggle while bickering over a young indian servent. Their difficulties continue when Oberon sends Puck to drip the love potion

This theme is certainly supported throughout the play. When Helena wakes Lysander, treated with the love potion, she says, “. . .Dead or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.— Lysander, if you live, good sir, awake.”(II,ii) When Lysander wakes up he falls instantly in love with Helena and says, “(waking) And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake. Transparent Helena! Nature shows art That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart. Where is Demetrius? Oh, how fit a word Is that vile name to perish on my sword!”(II,ii). This clearly shows that Lysander falls in deep love with Helena as soon as he looks at her. Similarly, Titania, under the love potion, falls in love with Bottom as soon as she wakes. She says to him, “(waking) What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?”(III,i) After listening to Bottom sing to her, Titania continues, “I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again. Mine ear is much enamored of thy note. So is mine eye enthrallèd to thy shape. And thy fair virtue’s force perforce doth move me On the first view to say, to swear, I love thee.”(III,i). Titania claims wakes and claims to love Bottom upon first sight, supporting the theme that true love is realized at first sight. While it is clear in both situations there is love at first sight, it is artificial love. In both scenarios, the lover only loves because they are under the control of a love potion, their love is created by the potion and is not true love. True love cannot be acquired at a first look, but is attained through struggle and