Love and Pride in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night's Dream Essay Example

William Shakespeare’s comedy  “A Midsummer Night's Dream” (1596) uses the theme of love to reveal the irrational mindset of lovers. During the Elizabethan era, love held little importance when it came to marriage, as it was largely for financial and social reasons. Shakespeare reveals this when Helena informs Demetrius of Hermia’s elopement in “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind / [...] Cupid painted blind”. Shakespeare uses the allusion of the Roman God, Cupid to reveal how even deities are unable to reason the rationality of an individual. Furthermore, the personification of love shows how love does not rely on physical attributes and logical explanations but is fabricated by imagination. During Helena’s expression of love to Demetrius, Shakespeare uses high modality and juxtaposition in “I’ll follow thee, and make a heaven of hell” to highlight Helena’s strong motivation in her pursuit of love to the point that she has developed the fantastical mindset of seeing “heaven” in “hell”. This reveals to the audience that in the attempt of strong-willed personality individuals to realise their idealised love they can develop deranged imaginations of situations they are situated in. When Theseus watches the mechanicals’ plays, he uses the biblical allusion of ‘hell’ in “ The lunatic, the lover, and the poet / are of imagination all compact / One sees more devils than vast hell can hold; / That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic” to show lunatics see many things that aren’t there and how lovers cannot see with reason. Moreover, the line “ are of imagination all compact” means ‘wholly caused imagination’ which in the Elizabethan era meant the power to see things. Thus “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” exposes the illogical mindset and absurdity individuals can develop in their experience of desiring love.

Shakespeare’s, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, uses the theme of pride to expose the human experience of living in a male privileged society during the Elizabethan era. During the Elizabethan era, the patriarchal social standards presented men to be the strong breadwinner of the family whereas women were pictured as the ‘weaker sex’. Women were supposedly weaker physically and emotionally in comparison to men. Shakespeare shows pride in Egeus as he believes that he owns his daughter when he brought Hermia to the court of Athens. Shakespeare uses the dismissive diction of “dispose” in  “ I may dispose of her, / Which shall be either to this gentleman / Or to her death” to reveal the social ideology and prejudice against women as they were not allowed to claim independence but were subservient to their fathers. In addition, Egeus objectifies Hermia to show how Hermia is his possession and how he is allowed to do anything to her. Shakespeare reveals Oberon’s pride again when Oberon and Titania argue over a changeling child. He uses emotive language and an egotistical tone in “Tarr rash wanton! Am not thy lord?” to reveal how men believed in the Elizabethan era that they were far superior to any women. This also is a reference to the patriarchal society where men were considered leaders and women as inferiors. Hippolyta’s pride in her people during her recount of her escaping Crete. She uses the mythological allusion in ``I was with Hercules and Cadmus once [...] beared the bear / with hounds of Sparta” to reveal the idea of how a woman needed a strong man to take care of them. Furthermore, the text shows how men were expected to carry the burden of protecting a woman from danger. Thus “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” exploits and emphasizes the experience of social ideologies in the Elizabethan era through the theme of pride.