A Midsummer Night's dream Essay

A Midsummer Night’s Dream
In William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare shows the darker side of love. In most love stories, there are problems that the lovers must face and conquer, but the dilemmas presented in this play are much more complex than those depicted in the original fairy tales. Everyone is in love with the person and is manipulated into loving someone other than the one they want.
The story starts out with Hermia arguing with her father about who she wants to be with, Lysander, and who her father wants her to be with, Demetrius. Lysander and Demetrius are both in love with Hermia, but she only loves Lysander. Then there is Helena, who loves Demetrius and does not understand why he is in love with Hermia instead of her. This right here is enough of a love triangle without the complexities of the love potion Puck is told to use. Although there is a happy ending, it takes a long time to get there and with a lot of issues. Hermia and Lysander have the dilemma of not being allowed to be together, so they decide to run away and get married because they are in love, which is one sign of problems. Helena is in love with Demetrius who is in love with Hermia. Helena and Demetrius had a relationship previous to the play itself and she is still head over heels in love with him, but he really wants nothing to do with her.
Another example of how twisted this love story is, involves the fairies that are presented in the story. Oberon and his wife Titania are having marital issues over a blue Indian boy. They both feel that they should have the child in their custody. The issue with the boy is never truly resolved and the reader never really learns about what happens to the child, but the status between Oberon and his wife are resolved. Oberon has Puck collect the love potion from the magical flower and put it into his wife’s eyes so that she will fall in love with the first thing she sees and it happens to be Bottom who has the head of a...