What Is True Love In A Midsummer Night's Dream
The Course of True Love Doesn’t Run Smooth
Disney stories always start with a Prince and Princess, they have a problem, they fix the problem and then they live happily every after. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is not much different from these fairy tales. The play is about the love and relationships of multiple characters, some overlapping love triangles, and the magic and magical stories that contributed to the love. Hermia and Lysander both truly love each other and after running away together to get away from Hermia’s father who is keeping the two apart, their relationship is stopped by dreaming and fake love. With the relationship between Lysander and Hermia, dreaming does nothing but interrupt reality creating more problems for the couple and intervening in the true love that previously existed. One form of dreaming is being under a spell which involves magic. This is like the one Lysander was put under the night after running away. Hermia and Lysander fell in love and were stopped from seeing each other by Hermia’s father who instead wanted her to see Demetrius. The two ran away to Lysander’s Aunt's house hoping to stay together and get away from their problems. The first night being in the woods the two slept apart, Hermia …show more content…
saying “Nay, good Lysander. For my sake, my dear/ Lie further off yet. Do not lie so near” (II. ii. 32-33). This quotation is part of what initially set up Lysander for being put under the spell. The two sleeping seperate made it unclear that they were together and was hard for Puck to tell who Lysander was. When Lysander and Hermia slept apart Robin put a spell on Lysander making him fall in love with Helena and forget about his true love with Hermia.
“Content with Hermis? No. I do repent
The tedious minutes I with her have spent.
Not Hermia but Helena I love.” (II.ii. 117-119)
The love Lysander felt for Helena was fake and was a “dream” caused by magic.
A dream can also be shown in the form of hope for the future, Lysander and Hermia both dreamt of a life together after running away. Hermia and Lysander are excited to spend their lives together after being married. This is before they are told they can not be together by Hermia’s father. The two plan to run away together into the woods to Lysander’s Aunt’s house.
“I have a widow aunt, a dowager
Of great revenue, and she hath no child.
From Athens is her house remote seven leagues,
And she respects me as her only son.
There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee.
And to that place the sharp Athenian law
Cannot pursue us” (1. i .157-163)
The two hope that after going to the woods together their problems will be solved and they can live “happily ever after”. Lysander tells Hermia that when they go to the woods nobody will be able to find them or know who they are, leaving them alone and free to restart. Hermia hoped that after leaving for the woods her problems with both Demetrius and her father would go away, “take comfort. He no more shall see my face./ Lysander and myself will fly this place.” (I.i 202-203). Hermia tells Helena that her and Lysander are leaving and that her being there will no longer cause problems for Helena to be with Demetrius. Through dreaming the couple was able to escape reality for a moment and think of what it might be like if they left. Dreaming happens to everyone, another way you can dream is through sleeping. When Hermia and Lysander split up the night after running away she has a nightmare, “Methought a serpent eat my heart away, And you sat smiling at his cruel play” (II.ii. 155-156). This was foreshadowing to what would happen between her and Lysander when he would wake up no longer loving her. In the beginning of the play Hermia said,
“Before the time I did Lysander see
Seemed Athens as a paradise to me.
Oh, then, what graces in my love do dwell,
That he hath turned a heaven unto hell!” (1.i. 204-207)
And now she is having nightmares over the man she was in love with. In the dream Hermia thinks she is being eaten by a snake while Lysander does nothing but watch. This might show that Hermia is not as confident with Lysander as she was in the previous quote. Dreaming can show one’s true thoughts or hopes and in this case can foreshadow to what is yet to happen.
Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare shows how dreaming affects relationships in a bad way.
Although in the end the couples, specifically Hermia and Lysander, end up happy and together like how they started in the beginning of the play, they had a conflict hurting their relationship through the story. Lysander was no longer content with being with Hermia when just the day before they had run into the woods to escape. Even though the spells, caused by the dreaming, were reversed in the end, it still affected both Lysander and Hermia’s lives and made them rethink their plans to run away. True love comes naturally and by Oberon’s potion coming into the story it interrupts the natural love leaving the couples confused and
fake.
Disney stories always start with a Prince and Princess, they have a problem, they fix the problem and then they live happily every after. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is not much different from these fairy tales. The play is about the love and relationships of multiple characters, some overlapping love triangles, and the magic and magical stories that contributed to the love. Hermia and Lysander both truly love each other and after running away together to get away from Hermia’s father who is keeping the two apart, their relationship is stopped by dreaming and fake love. With the relationship between Lysander and Hermia, dreaming does nothing but interrupt reality creating more problems for the couple and intervening in the true love that previously existed. One form of dreaming is being under a spell which involves magic. This is like the one Lysander was put under the night after running away. Hermia and Lysander fell in love and were stopped from seeing each other by Hermia’s father who instead wanted her to see Demetrius. The two ran away to Lysander’s Aunt's house hoping to stay together and get away from their problems. The first night being in the woods the two slept apart, Hermia …show more content…
saying “Nay, good Lysander. For my sake, my dear/ Lie further off yet. Do not lie so near” (II. ii. 32-33). This quotation is part of what initially set up Lysander for being put under the spell. The two sleeping seperate made it unclear that they were together and was hard for Puck to tell who Lysander was. When Lysander and Hermia slept apart Robin put a spell on Lysander making him fall in love with Helena and forget about his true love with Hermia.
“Content with Hermis? No. I do repent
The tedious minutes I with her have spent.
Not Hermia but Helena I love.” (II.ii. 117-119)
The love Lysander felt for Helena was fake and was a “dream” caused by magic.
A dream can also be shown in the form of hope for the future, Lysander and Hermia both dreamt of a life together after running away. Hermia and Lysander are excited to spend their lives together after being married. This is before they are told they can not be together by Hermia’s father. The two plan to run away together into the woods to Lysander’s Aunt’s house.
“I have a widow aunt, a dowager
Of great revenue, and she hath no child.
From Athens is her house remote seven leagues,
And she respects me as her only son.
There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee.
And to that place the sharp Athenian law
Cannot pursue us” (1. i .157-163)
The two hope that after going to the woods together their problems will be solved and they can live “happily ever after”. Lysander tells Hermia that when they go to the woods nobody will be able to find them or know who they are, leaving them alone and free to restart. Hermia hoped that after leaving for the woods her problems with both Demetrius and her father would go away, “take comfort. He no more shall see my face./ Lysander and myself will fly this place.” (I.i 202-203). Hermia tells Helena that her and Lysander are leaving and that her being there will no longer cause problems for Helena to be with Demetrius. Through dreaming the couple was able to escape reality for a moment and think of what it might be like if they left. Dreaming happens to everyone, another way you can dream is through sleeping. When Hermia and Lysander split up the night after running away she has a nightmare, “Methought a serpent eat my heart away, And you sat smiling at his cruel play” (II.ii. 155-156). This was foreshadowing to what would happen between her and Lysander when he would wake up no longer loving her. In the beginning of the play Hermia said,
“Before the time I did Lysander see
Seemed Athens as a paradise to me.
Oh, then, what graces in my love do dwell,
That he hath turned a heaven unto hell!” (1.i. 204-207)
And now she is having nightmares over the man she was in love with. In the dream Hermia thinks she is being eaten by a snake while Lysander does nothing but watch. This might show that Hermia is not as confident with Lysander as she was in the previous quote. Dreaming can show one’s true thoughts or hopes and in this case can foreshadow to what is yet to happen.
Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare shows how dreaming affects relationships in a bad way.
Although in the end the couples, specifically Hermia and Lysander, end up happy and together like how they started in the beginning of the play, they had a conflict hurting their relationship through the story. Lysander was no longer content with being with Hermia when just the day before they had run into the woods to escape. Even though the spells, caused by the dreaming, were reversed in the end, it still affected both Lysander and Hermia’s lives and made them rethink their plans to run away. True love comes naturally and by Oberon’s potion coming into the story it interrupts the natural love leaving the couples confused and
fake.