True Love In A Midsummer Night's Dream
In this comedy, true love's path is paved with every single step, for it is difficult, confusing, and insane. Though love is a beautiful thing, it has its own difficulties and this is shown throughout the story. There are many conflicts and restrictions in the love triangle the characters are immersed in. One example is the fact that Egeus, Hermia’s father, disagrees with her love for Lysander and desires for her to be married to Demetrius. The two men love Hermia, but Hermia only loves Lysander, whom her father disapproves of. According to the Athenian law, her options are either death, to live as a nun, or to marry Demetrius as her father commands. Lysander states “Ay me! For ought that I could ever read, could ever hear by tale or history, the course of true love never did run smooth.” (1.1.
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134-136) This shows that Lysander is admitting to love being a difficult and uneasy path, but in hope of cheering up Hermia, he formulates a plan to elope with her.
Another situation is where, in the same scene, Lysander describes the controlling influence love has on humans, and how this may contribute to the disapproval of it. He states “Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, war, death, or sickness did lay siege to it, making it momentany as a sound, swift as a shadow, short as any dream, brief as the lightning in the collided night, that, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, and, ere a man hath power to say “behold!” the jaws of darkness to devour it up. So quick bright things come to confusion.” (1.1.143-151) Here, Lysander states some major problems that can separate love such as war, death, and sickness. These are things that would not only cancel love, but would cancel nearly any sort of emotion other than sadness and
remorse. He makes allusions to natural disasters and weather patterns. He refers to lightning when saying this, and he says that love is as powerful as lightning, but also just as quick and confusing. Lysander is trying to inform Hermia of these issues, so that she can be aware of what can separate them. As demonstrated in the play, Lysander and Hermia struggle to find happiness together, but manage to persevere throughout the story, and are able to find happiness together by the end of the play. These instances prove that love is extremely confusing, complicated and difficult, and never easy.
134-136) This shows that Lysander is admitting to love being a difficult and uneasy path, but in hope of cheering up Hermia, he formulates a plan to elope with her.
Another situation is where, in the same scene, Lysander describes the controlling influence love has on humans, and how this may contribute to the disapproval of it. He states “Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, war, death, or sickness did lay siege to it, making it momentany as a sound, swift as a shadow, short as any dream, brief as the lightning in the collided night, that, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, and, ere a man hath power to say “behold!” the jaws of darkness to devour it up. So quick bright things come to confusion.” (1.1.143-151) Here, Lysander states some major problems that can separate love such as war, death, and sickness. These are things that would not only cancel love, but would cancel nearly any sort of emotion other than sadness and
remorse. He makes allusions to natural disasters and weather patterns. He refers to lightning when saying this, and he says that love is as powerful as lightning, but also just as quick and confusing. Lysander is trying to inform Hermia of these issues, so that she can be aware of what can separate them. As demonstrated in the play, Lysander and Hermia struggle to find happiness together, but manage to persevere throughout the story, and are able to find happiness together by the end of the play. These instances prove that love is extremely confusing, complicated and difficult, and never easy.