The concept of love in Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

        At first, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” seems to be talking about romantic love and happy endings; the four lovers after comic trials and self-awareness journeys form loving couples. Helena’s “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind” is one of the most famous quotes, often used to talk about a more “elevated” kind of love, that doesn’t care about physical appearance but inner, intellectual world. However, with a closer look, one finds out that the love described in the play is not “elevated” at all; it is rather faulty. To better explain this view, I will use the example of Hermia and Lysander as a couple.

In the beginning of the play, Lysander says: “My love is more than his”. Lysander presents an argument as to why he is a better fit for Hermia than Demetrius, who was chosen by her father. He says that he loves Hermia more than Demetrius does. This is faulty on numerous levels, eg he cannot possibly know how Demetrius feels, or rather how much he feels so to compare with his own feelings. But most importantly, it is faulty because he speaks of love as a quantity not as a quality. Love is not a matter of how much, but how good. Perhaps, the love Demetrius has is of a better quality for Hermia or perhaps it isn’t.

“It cannot be, but thou hast murdered him. So should a murderer looke; so dead, so grimme”. Hermia accusses Demetrius of murdering Lysander, after waking up alone in the woods. The chief ground for her argument is Lysander’s love for her; he couldn’t have possibly abandoned her with his will. As an audience, we are likely to pick up the general irony —the fact that Lysander no longer loves her and he has indeed abandoned her to pursue Helena. Her accusation reveals something about the true nature of Hermia’s love. She would rather imagine her lover dead than to imagine that he has left her, which suggests that she’s more in love with the image of herself as beloved, than she is with her boyfriend. Hermia loves feeling loved, cared for and being given attention. She is rather the recipient of the love, not the giver, which makes their relationship faulty in nature, because relationships work on the basis of giving and taking from both partners to both partners. Moreover, the refusal of Lysander in her bed (she even keeps a distance while sleeping), apart from symbolizing a possible fear for sex, shows another fear: Lysander may break his oath to marry her. Hermia wants to be married first before consummating the marriage to make sure that Lysander won’t be able to abandon her after that.

However, from this scene, we also understand that Hermia’s and Lysander’s relationship is essentially a power relationship, with the male counterpart having all the power. Hermia is the one chasing Lysander after he has left her, Hermia is the one who is afraid of Lysander’s sexual power over her. In other words, Lysander holds sexual power over her that scares her, as communicated by her nightmare with the serpent. So, their relationship is based on inequality between the two genders, with female counterpart being controlled by the male partner.

Thus, it becomes apparent that love in Shakespeare’s  “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is not ideal. The above mentioned examples offer insight on the true nature of the relationship of the lovers. In this sense, all the revelations of the lovers’ true selves must be forgotten in the day light, because they would cause irreparable harm in the relationship and expose how weak their bonds are.