A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Does Parental Love Overrule All?

In the comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, one of the many themes of the play is love. During the play, there is a major wedding happening for The Duke and Amazon Queen, Theseus and Hippolyta. The play takes place in Athens, Greece, and is mainly focused around four lovers: Helena, Demetrius, Hermia, and Lysander. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the main types of love shown are false, sexual, and parental which should not triumph all.

False love is presented to us by Oberon, The Fairy King, at the beginning of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. There are three people who are compelled by false love: Lysander, Titania, and Demetrius. Lysander was mistaken by Puck for Demetrius. Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, Oberon’s jester, is a troublesome fairy who plays tricks on mortals. When Oberon found out about Puck's mistake, he was not pleased and he says, “What hast thou done? Thou hast mistaken quite/ And laid the love juice on some true love’s sight/ Of thy misprision must perforce ensue/ Some true love turned and not a false turned true” (3.2.89-91). Lysander was in true love with Hermia, but when Puck puts the love juice on his eyes, he falls in false love with Helena. Helena was caught completely off guard by Lysander and this sudden change of heart and decides that Lysander must be mocking her because she already suffers from her unshared love for Demetrius. Declaring his love for her, Lysander follows Helena into the wood deserting Hermia all alone in the woods asleep. Lysander under the love potion begins to praise her beauty and to declare his undying passion: “ Context with Hermia? No, I do not repent/ the tedious minutes I with her have spent/ Not Hermia, but Helena I love/ Who will not change a raven for a dove/ The will of man is by his reason swayed/ … Reason to becomes the marshall to my will/ And leads me to your eyes, where I o’erlook” (2.2.118-128). Lysander is in love with Hermia but the love for her is not true it is false. His true love for Hermia was washed away when Puck puts the love juice on Lysander's eyes instead of Demetrius. Although false love was presented to us by Oberon the mistake was soon corrected.

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Sexual love is a deep feeling of sexual desire and attraction, Titania and Bottom have a sexual relationship because of Oberon. In the play Oberon and Titania are have a big fight in the first half of the play about Titania's rejecting to relinquish the changeling. The changeling boys mother had been a friend of hers and she dies giving birth to the boy. Oberon is driven by jealousy that he makes Robin Goodfellow, Puck, go get a flower that acts like one of Cupid's arrows. Oberon does this so he can recall her attention and striping her of the changeling boy. Puck retrieves the flower and gives it to Oberon. Once Titania is asleep Oberon puts the love juice on Titania's eyelids. When Titania wakes up she hears Nick Bottom sing and states, “ I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again/ Mine ear is such enamored of thy note/ … On the first view to say, to swear, I love thee” (3.1.139-143). Titania is awakened by Nick Bottoms who has been recently transformed into an “ass-head” by Puck and falls in love with him. Titania calls her fairies over to meet Bottom and she tells them to give him anything he wants. Then after she states her fairies “ Come, wait upon him. Lead him to my bower/ The moon, methinks, looks with wat’ry eye/ And when she weeps, weeps every little flower/ Lamenting some enforced chastity/ Tie up my lovers tongue. Bring him silently” (3.1.204-208). Love is not just about sexual intercourse it is strong and lasting affection between spouses or lovers who are in a happy, passionate and fulfilling relationship. Titania and Bottom have a sexual relationship because she is telling her fairies to take her lover to her bed so they can sleep together.

Parental love in A Midsummer Night's Dream is introduced to us by Egeus, Hermia's dad. Egeus take the three lovers: Lysander, Demetruis, and Hermia to the Duke of Athens, Theseus. Egeus clearly states that he wants Demetrius to marry Hermia but Hermia does not love Demetrius. Egeus says, “Stand forth, Demetrius My Noble lord/ This man hath my consent to marry her/ Stand forth, Lysander. And my gracious Duke/ This man hath bewitched the bosom of my child” (1.1.24-28). Hermia loves Lysander and her father is not happy with this and thats why he says he believes Lysander is unworthy and that he does not truly love Hermia and he is trying to undermine Egeus's authority as a father. As this conversation goes on Hermia only has three options to choose from to become a nun, marry a man she doesn't love, or go against her father and die. Hermia is not happy with the choices she has, so she chose to run away from Athens with Lysander. They tell their trustworthy friend Helena about their plans to run away but Helena goes behind their backs tells Demetruis of the plan. Later towards the end of the story Lysander and Hermia are back together and Demetrius is final in love with Helena. Egeus hears of what happened and pronounce, “Enough, enough, my lord. You have enough!/ I beg the law, the law, upon his head/ They would have stol'n away, they would, Demetrius/ Thereby to have defeated you and me/ You of your wife and me of my consent/ Of my consent that she should be your wife” (4.1.160-166). Egeus is saying to the Duke that you heard enough evidence that they were going to run away together and he insists that the law punishes Lysander. Demetrius tells Egeus and Theseus that he no longer loves Hermia but he now loves Helena. Theseus overrules Egeus commands and lets the lovers stay with each other. In the end the two lovers get married with The Duke and Amazon Queen.

There are many types of love such as friendly, unrequited, argumentative, and passionative. The main types of love shown in A Midsummer Night’s Dream are false, sexual, and parental. False love is presented to us by Oberon at the beginning of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This type of love is an excessive desire to control other people and it resembles over-protection sometimes, in some cases the person is trying to downgrade the other person. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream false love is not the definition of false love, in the play it is true love turned false but feels true. Furthermore in the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, Titania and Bottom introduce sexual love to us. Sexul love is a deep feeling of sexual desire and attraction, Titania and Bottom have a sexual relationship in A Midsummer Night’s Dream due to Oberon wanting the changeling boy. The only way to gain possession is to recall her attention and striping her of the changeling boy. In addition to the types of love Parental love is a big part of their daughters and sons loving someone. In the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, parental love does take some part but it does not triumph at all. Your parent does have a saying you're life but it does not always make them your decision maker. Our parents play an important role in our mental, physical, social, financial and career development. They help us in every step of our life, they trained us for the challenges that come up in the future. Our parents are the people who support and love you, and the people you can trust in.