A Midsummer Night's Dream Love Essay

In Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream love is fleeting, mad and marvelous. All of the characters have different views on love. Some believe it is worth giving everything for and others believe it is worthless. The characters spend a night in a forest where they go through a roller coaster of emotions. The mischievous Oberon and Puck are the culprits for causing this roller coaster for the other characters. Lysander is a character that will do anything for love because it can go by so quickly. He shows this when he talks to Hermia in the beginning of the play, when he speaks to Hermia about the plan and when his love has changed. Lysander is introduced to the audience with being in love with Hermia. The problem with this is that Hermia is promised to Demetrius by her father. Hermia loves Lysander and not Demetrius. Lysander is boosting himself up to Hermia’s father by saying that the deciding fact in this problem should be that Hermia loves him. Lysander is willing to do anything to be with Hermia. He says, “Swift as a shadow, short as any dream, Brief as the lightning in the collied night” (144-145). In this quote Lysander is saying that love can be a thing that is very brief and can be gone in an instant. Before this bit he was talking about ways how love can be taken away. He says that war, …show more content…
They discuss a plan to run away together. They speak of meeting in the woods and Lysander says, “If thou lovest me then, Steal forth thy father’s house tomorrow night” (163-164). Lysander is saying that if Hermia really loves him she will leave her father’s house and meet him in the woods. He is asking her to leave everything that she has in the name of love. Lysander and Hermia both are willing to give up everything to be with each other. They both will start with nothing, because to them love is worth it. This just shows again how love is worth giving everything up