Free Acting Like Children Essay: Top-Quality Sample To Follow

Every person has different roles they play within the relationships they have, from wife and mother to a father and king. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a bizarre play written by William Shakespeare which highlights the details of these relationships. While the play features many characters, the two who most affect everyone else are the King and Queen of the fairies, Oberon and Titania. Although Oberon and Titania are in positions of power, and have responsibility for a child, they both live a childlike existence. Oberon and Titania put other activities and people ahead of their relationships, get unnecessarily jealous of each other and then seek to punish each other.
The beginning issue between Oberon and Titania is their different ideas on what to do with the Indian Prince Titania has kidnapped. While Titania wants to raise the boy like she is his mother, Oberon wants to make him a knight. Titania spoils the boy, putting flowers in his hair, while Oberon thinks the boy should be going on adventures with him. Where parents are supposed to talk about their different ideas and find a compromise, Oberon and Titania refuse to come to any kind of compromise. They allow their different ideas to get between them as a couple, and this leads to a whole mess of issues.
The reason that Oberon is so determined to try and take the boy away from Titania is because he is jealous. Not only is he jealous, he allows his jealousy to control him and takes actions because of it. The idea he has to put her under a spell is a direct result of his jealousy. Titania is jealous of Oberon too, accusing him of loving Hippolyta; in return, Oberon accuses her of loving Theseus. This is even though Hippolyta and Theseus are to be married. Parents in a healthy relationship are not going to allow jealousy to control them because they are going to trust in each other and be confident in their relationship with each other.
The final way which Oberon and Titania behave in a childlike manner is how they punish each other. They begin by not talking to each other. Titania takes it further, refusing to sleep with Oberon until he leaves the boy alone. In response to Titania’s punishment, Oberon comes up with a plan. He causes Titania to drink a potion and fall in love with a man who has a donkey’s head. She sleeps with this man and makes all the fairies serve him, and looks like a fool in the meantime. These pranks are childish in nature, with serious adult consequences.
While Oberon and Titania have many opportunities to act like adults, they choose to react to each other like children. Instead of healthy communication they use silence, instead of prioritizing their marriage they put others first and instead of trying to deal with their issues in a mature manner they punish each other and play childish pranks. Although they are adults, each of these behaviors shows how they are really like children in adult’s bodies. In addition, they treat each other horribly with no thought given to the other people they might hurt. Instead of giving themselves and others respect, they live by their feelings and react to them without a thought.