Throughout Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, there are many occasions where the characters face challenges with each others relationships. A Midsummer Night’s Dream focuses on the exploration of love in its many different forms. Some of these forms of love shown in A Midsummer Night’s Dream include forced love, parental love and unrequited love.
Forced love is shown throughout the play as characters force themselves or others to love one another. This is interesting, as it shows how people can be tricked into something they really would not feel or do. In the beginning of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Egeus is forcing Hermia to marry Demetrius. As Egeus is Hermia’s Father, he feels as if he has the right to Hermia’s future as he does own her. Egeus is obviously forcing and imposing his initial ideas even though Hermia clearly does not want to marry Demetrius and would rather become a nun or die.
This concept is seen again in a different light with Helena and Demetrius. Helena is constantly forcing herself to have a relationship with Demetrius even though Demetrius rejects her every time. Helena did previously have a relationship with Demetrius before he found Hermia and does not realise that her relationship with Demetrius is over. When Helena follows Demetrius into the forest she even suggests that she be treated like a dog as long as she is with him. This demonstrated how Helena lowers herself to acquire Demetrius’s love.
Throughout the play, Oberon disturbs the relationships between Hermia, Lysander, Helena and Demetrius. Different characters come to love others that they previously would not have. They are being forced to love each other except they can’t reject the idea because it becomes the only reality that they know. (That is why this is different to the situation of Egeus and Hermia. Hermia could reject Egeus’s idea.)