Love has been a common focal point of literature throughout the ages, from a young adult novel’s idealization love or the obsessive love portrayed in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Love plays an especially large role in the plot of A Midsummer Night’s Dream as it is the reasoning behind all the madness and mayhem. For example, the lovers’ arc shows the maddening effect of love through the desperate, despicable actions that the lovers commit against one another. The strongest examples of love’s crazy influence are shown in Lysander’s extremities and Helena’s betrayal. Therefore through the lovers’ transgressions, Shakespeare illustrates how love can make irrational asses out of anyone. Lysander is a lover through and through, but his passion often influences him towards extremities. …show more content…
The lovelorn girl with loose loyalties will even go so far as to betray her best friend in a desperate grab at love. Helena experiences her first lapse in judgement during the beginning of the play when she decides to inform Demetrius of Hermia and Lysander’s secret plan to elope. Helena reasons her betrayal with the hope that, “For this intelligence / If I have thanks, it is a dear expense / But herein mean I to enrich my pain, / To have his sight thither and back again” (I.1.258-261). Helena rationalizes that even a passing glance of Demetrius is worth betraying her best friend’s trust. However, Helena’s rationale isn’t rational whatsoever as the weight of a friendship is far greater than the weight of a mere sighting. However, Helena’s love for Demetrius is so deep that it clouds her better judgement and reverses the value of her relationship with Hermia and her obsession with Demetrius. Thus, love sways Helena’s loyalties and leads to Helena’s desperate betrayal. A betrayal so thoughtless and cold that it truly shows the treacherous ass out of Helena has