User:Ebeidm/Sandbox

The theme of love plays a key role in Shakespeare’s, A Midsummer Night’s Dream as it suggests that people would rather live happily in love than live successfully in a forced marriage. Love’s irrationality is blind to structure of society is presented through the actions of the characters in love, Hernia and Lysander, who disregard the social norms and pursue their own love affair (Gianakaris). Unfortunately, with love, comes the complications of “passion, lust, frustration, depression, confusion, and marriage” (Art Smarts). As the play progresses, these complications clearly reveal themselves. Friedlander suggests that emotions prove very important to describing perception, and these emotions allow the audience to experience interactions that exhibit perceptions influenced by unfamiliarities (website: WVUP). The emotions of Hernia and Lysander, specifically, are strong enough to risk death in order to find love, which is why they escape to the forest together. With the presence of the fairies in the forest, the theme of imagination of the human mind prevails. The (imaginary) fairies have just as much, if not more, influence on the young lovers as the real court does, not only marking the importance of an imagination, but also noting the blurring of social classes since the fairies are essentially on the same level as the aristocrats of the court (MSND, Ed.=Lee). The ability for aristocrats to be equal to anyone lower than them in society is something only to be imagined during Shakespearian times. Additionally, the leaning of the young lovers toward the imaginary world further shows how important the imagination is to the human mind. Anything is possible through the use of one’s imagination. Like imagination, dreams play an important role in redirecting what is actually occurring in real life. Puck, a hilarious conveyor of dreams, twists reality and gives “nature’s ingredients a great stir” by giving the wrong person the love potion simply because he sees all Athenians as being similar (Nevo). According to Nevo, the forest and everything that the forest offers, including trolls and fairies, are all part of the sub-consciousness, and therefore, part of a dream (Nevo). Imagination and dreams are vital to advancing the plot of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.