Introduction
For answering this question in relation to three of the couples of William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (Hermia and Lysander, Helena and Demetrius and Titania and Oberon), there must be initially analyzed the love between them. Love takes various shapes and there are different ways to love: sincere and tender, having one another when others oppose the lovers’ feelings (as it is the case of Hermia and Lysander), obsessively or accidentally (as it happened in the case of Helena and Demetrius), or with passion and feelings of possession or jealousy (which define the love between Titania and Oberon).
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Each of these couples face challenges that stay in the way of their love. At the first look, there can be stated that actually these challenges impulse and emphasize their love, as they are the spices that train their love and make it more appealing, more seductive, more worthy to fight for. Watching Hermia and Lysander’s love, the two youngsters lean on each other to remain strong when Hermia’s father, Egeus, resists the relationship between them and commands Hermia to marry Demetrius, who was also in loved with her. In fact, having to fight for their love is actually what makes their love stronger.
“Lysander: The beautiful Hermia loves me,/Which is the most important point. Why shouldn’t I return her love?” (Shakespeare 9)
The two lovers become one entity, pursuing the couple’s aspirations for being together with the price of life. The fact that in the end they get to be together displays that for them love conquers all earthly things.
Titania and Oberon have a long lasting relationship, although not a really mature one. The king of fairies and the queen of fairies have been together through multiple quarrels and reconciliations, which have determined their relationship to be dependent on foolish, child – like fights over nothing, just to have the sweet opportunity to get back together. The two lovers are jealous of one another: while Oberon accuses Titania to have a relationship with Theseus, Duke of Athens, Titania reproaches Oberon that he has feelings for Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons:
“Titania: Have you come to see Hippolyta,/Your old love, be married to Theseus? []
Oberon: For shame, Titania, talking about my love for Hippolyta/When I know of your love for Theseus” (Shakespeare 20).
They are getting on each other’s nerves, are playing tricks on each other, fighting, complotting against one another, but in the end they love each other, and all the foolish acts they do are acts of love, to make their relationship always fresh and the desire for one another permanently young and new and in the end, for them too, love conquers all.
Taking a look at the love between Helena and Demetrius, there can be initially identified an unrequited love. Only Helena loves Demetrius but the latest does not respond to her loving feelings, on the contrary, he mocks her, while pursuing Hermia, whom he actually loves and whom he is destined to marry. This does not look like real love shared between two people, but it indicates that one person expresses her loving energy for the other, while the other rejects it.
“Demetrius: I do not love you. Don’t follow me [] Go away, Helena! Follow me no more.
Helena: You draw me like a magnet. My heart/Is true as steel” (Shakespeare 24).
In fact, the couple Helena and Demetrius challenges the idea that love conquers all. Their relationship passes suddenly from unshared feelings of love to insane love for one another, as a result of a spell. Shakespeare portrayed a mascaraed – like event that determined Demetrius to fall for Helena, when Puck puts a spell on both him and Lysander. The fact that Lysander too, who was deeply in love with Hermia, fell in love with Helena after the spell indicates that their loving feelings were like puppets in the hand of a manipulative master of puppets. Puck has the supreme power over the youngsters’ hearts, determining Lysander and Demetrius to fall in love with Helena, while both rejecting Hermia and he also has the power to stop these loving feelings, as he ceases the spell he put on Lysander, so that only Demetrius to remain in loved with Helena, while Lysander regained his true love for Hermia.
The spells from the woods incident can determine multiple interpretations about love and human condition as guided by love. In the case of Helena and Demetrius it is difficult to consider that their love was true, since a spell determined that the love that Helena had for Demetrius to be shared. Does love conquer all in this case? Not quite. More likely a spell conquers all, in the case of Helena and Demetrius.
Conclusion
For the three couples of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (Hermia and Lysander, Helena and Demetrius and Titania and Oberon), love is like a game, which throws lovers in a puppet show, playing with their feelings, causing pain for unshared love, confusion for the sudden change of feelings or permanent jealousy driven by intense passion. Love conquers all in the case of Hermia and Lysander and in the case of Titania and Oberon, just because they were liberated from the spells they were under, otherwise they could have remained kept inside a magic that manipulated their true feelings. A spell conquers love, in the case of Helena and Demetrius and determines Demetrius to share Helena’s loving feelings. Therefore, while love conquers earthly laws or traditions or high tempered personalities, it does not conquer magic and spells.
Works Cited
Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Irvine, Ca: Saddleback Publishing Inc. 2003. Print.
