Love Lost - Female Submission in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream :: Midsummer Nights Dream

Love Lost - Female Submission in Shakespeares A Midsummer iniquitys DreamAfter starting time seeing a performance of Shakespeares A Midsummer Nights Dream, I would have called it a have intercourse story. After cultivation it several times, I am less sure what it is. I provide take a closer look at the behavior and mount of the characters to understand how a comedy with three marriages and as many as seven knowrs almost concludes without a portrayal of love that satisfies me. The pairings I learn are Theseus and Hippolyta, Hermia and Lysander, Helena and Demetrius, Helena and Hermia, Titania and Oberon, Titania and Bottom, and Pyramus and Thisby.Theseus and Hippolytas kinship is the most dignified in the play. They show a desire to plump along and they are comfort qualified sharing experiences and feelings important to them (1.1.1-11 4.1.111-126). Theseus tenderly dominates Hippolyta Come, my Hippolyta. What cheer, my love? (1.1.122 4.1.185). Hippolyta however never recipro cates his use of terms of endearment such as my love and fair queen. In addition, the mythical context of their relationship is foreboding. We are reminded that Theseus is able to marry Hippolyta because he kidnapped her (1.1.16-1.1.19). The mythical Hippolyta later either dies in childbirth, or fighting against the Amazons by Theseuss side, or Theseus leaves her for another woman, Phaedra, and the story gets more unsportsmanlike after that.1 Theseuss reputation as ravisher of women is addressed in the script (2.1.74-80). And the Amazon method of perpetuating their tribe is not romantic.2Our perception of Lysander and Hermias love develops in the following events Hermia chooses to become a nun sort of than submit to marrying the man her father has chosen for her Lysander comforts Hermia and shares his plan to fly They lose their way in the woods and negotiate sleeping arrangements Lysander comeuppance Hermia to pursue Helena and to kill his rival, Demetrius.While the initial eve nt establishes a traditional love-story scenario, departures from a Cinderella and Prince Charming characterization occur Hermia responds disrespectfully to the Duke (1.1.53) and Lysander makes a scornful remark to Demetrius and Egeus (1.1.93-94).When Lysander comforts Hermia and they plan to elope, they show they are well-versed in the nature of mythical love (1.1.132-155). That they have this level of awareness contrasts distressingly or comically with their later lack of self-possession. The exuberance of their rhetoric contrasts with the temperance of their situation, and I cannot conceive of these lines being performed in a way that could reprimand deep feeling.