Midsummer Night Dream is a widely circulated play written by Shakespeare, and its language is very beautiful, and it has a fantastic color. Its theme is related to love. In this absurd and funny plot, people will begin to think about what love is and what love should be like. Love and marriage have been debated for a long time.
In the midsummer night dream, love is changeable, dreamlike and irrational. The young girl Hermia and Lysander were in love, but her father Egneus wanted her to marry Demetrius. She refused. Lysander and Hermia decided to elope. Hermia told her friend Helena before they eloped. Helena told Demetrius about Hermia’s elopement. The fairy king and the elves wanted to be all Helena, so they used the juice of magic flowers, but they used the wrong person. The end result was that both Lysander and Demetrius fell in love with Helena. Hermia was heartbroken to see Lysander’s betrayal, but Helena thought they were teaming up to mock her, and they blamed each other. Lastly, the fairy King relieved Lysander of his magic. Lysander was still loyal to Hermia, while Helena was in love with Demetrius. Four people were delighted. Two couples were married at the same time as the Duke Theseus and Hippolyte. In these four people’s love entanglement, the real reflection of the various phenomena in love will occur, the people you love do not love you, the people you love do not love, two men chase a woman, betrayal of good friends, abandonment of lover… Just because of a drop of flower juice, you can put the vow behind your head and turn to love another person. Even because of this drop of flower juice, you can instantly fall in love with a person you don’t love or hate. This makes people wonder whether love is so absurd and fragile. This story also reflects the fickleness of love, because a flower will fall in love with the person you did not love, so easy to change also reflects that love is fragile and changeable.
Secondly, at the midsummer night dream, there is a very interesting couple, the fairy king and the fairy queen. Titania is the most typical example. Under the influence of magic flowers, she carefully served a donkey and made a garland of flowers for him. When the medicine was relieved and she saw the donkey around her, she immediately felt that it was ridiculous to ‘fall in love with the donkey’ and said that she would be angry at the sight of him. Thus, maybe that’s what Shakespeare wants to express. Love is so unreasonable that the people in it forget themselves. Some are as devoted to unsuitable candidates as Titania. Others are as passionate and persuasive as Lysander and Demetrius. They seem as foolish and ridiculous to outsiders as taking potions. When people wake up from the dream of love, they will overturn all their previous reasons, as if those actions belonged to another person. At the same time, magic flower is an illusory and magical thing, just like love. It is thoughtless, illusory, and can not be accurately described in words. Therefore, Shakespeare used his Midsummer Night Dream to show many states of love in front of the audience.
The significance of the Midsummer Night Dream is also obvious. Shakespeare used ancient Greek stories to show the bourgeois new women at that time. He fought for the freedom of love and marriage and against the feudal arranged marriage. At the beginning of the play, Hermia’s father accused her of not obeying herself. He said that her daughter belonged to him and that he could dispose of her at will and kill her if he did not obey him – so cruel and incredible! It can be seen that in the past, no matter which country, the size of patriarchy and the low status of women are so amazing! The Duke’s ruling was equally cruel. But Hermia remained motionless and kept her vow of love. In Hermia’s story, the conflict between marriage and love is perfectly explained. During the Elizabethan period, the feudal ideology was very serious. All the daughters were basically decided by their fathers, and their daughters had no right to decide who they wanted to marry. But in the script, Hermia breaks through the shackles of secularity, never yielding under the pressure of her father, and she resists the society in a way of elopement. In that era, elopement was a thing that women never dared to think about, but she proved her loyalty to love by her actions. Despite many obstacles in the process, her perseverance in love helped her break through all difficulties and marry the person she loved. Hermia represents those who pursue love bravely in this play, and also appeals to people to pursue their own love bravely. As a result, love is a matter for two people. It can also be said that when you fall in love, you can ignore the feelings of any other person. As long as you like it, you have your own circle of friends and do not interfere with each other in interpersonal relations. Marriage is a matter for a large group of people, including their families, their friends and many other places. The interpersonal relationship between marriage and love is very conflicting. But in this huge conflict, Hermia is still very firm in guarding her love. This is a very admirable spirit.
Helena is a girl who is obsessed with love. She is not afraid of Demetrius’ refusal and humiliation. She still follows her like a dog. She is brave to pursue her true love despite repeated attacks and ridicules. Let’s see how she makes herself ‘low in the dust’ again and again to express her obsession with Demetrius.’Ah, teach me how to turn my eyes and how to manipulate the heart of Demetrius with magic?” (A Midsummer Night Dream) Helena’s love for Demetrius was so strong that she lost herself. But true love is not bought at the cost of losing oneself. Helena even wanted to be a ‘dog’ following Demetrius, but in front of Demetrius, she was worse than a dog. Blind love for Demetrius made her almost lose the whole world. There was no one else in the world, only Demetrius and herself. This also reflects that people gradually lose themselves in love, and in the end, only crazy. This is also a phenomenon that often occurs in society. It is also a phenomenon that the author wants to satirize and change.
Author describes looks very simple, is a magnificent drama but is also a reflection of the real society, let us in laughter at the same time feel each character a different thought and morality, these thoughts reflect British Elizabethan social activities, the whole works is against the feudal marriage, advocate freedom of marriage, love also shows a dream for us love the world.
