Lysander And Helena example essay topic

Love in Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream" is represented in so many different ways. The two characters who most intrigue me with their representations of love are Lysander and Helena. I think that these characters point out a few, sometimes true, social stereotypes. These are points that are necessary to the story, but perhaps Shakespeare was trying to fit in his observations in society. Lysander is a fickle character. It is portrayed as no fault of his own that his love for Hermia wanders, but I think there is a bigger statement to be made.

Whomever Lysander loves at the time, he loves over the top and ridiculously. He appears to want to go to the ends of the Earth for the woman. I've been in a relationship with a guy like this, and it gets very old very quickly. No one wants to be told over and over all these things, but the women in this play don't seem to mind. I know that this is necessary to move the plot along, but it just seems over the top. When Puck redirects Lysander's love, it is immediately devoted to Helena.

He fawns over her and carries on and she wants no part of it because he is to be married to Hermia. Could he not have simply fallen out of love with Hermia and been lusting after Helena? That is a more likely situation. He treats this love as his ultimate love though, due to the potion that Puck put on his eyes.

Helena also has her own set of problems. She seems to enjoy being put down and verbally abused. She is following Demetrius around and is determined to make him love her. Of course, his put downs only encourage her. This happens in society all the time, and the women in Helena's place wish for a fairy or a Puck character to come along and make the man love them. I think this is part of the reason that the characters are fairies, because the things they do are things that people only wish they could do.

I have also been in Helena's place before. I was in a relationship with a guy who said only mean and hurtful things to me, and this eventually wore me down to the point where I started to believe him. Helena is sort of this way. Demetrius threatens to kill her or harm her and she doesn't fight it at all.

At least it's going to be him, she thinks. These thoughts and actions seem so horrible to me looking in on them, but when you are there it is very hard to realize the things that are going on. All Helena sees is a man she loves who refuses to love her back. I think that is why we are appalled by her actions; if we were in her shoes it may not seem so extreme. I think that Shakespeare made several statements in the course of this play about the way that males and females interact when they are in love.

We dream of things getting better, and that results in the fairy world. Men are fickle, as are Lysander's actions. And women sometimes ignore the verbal abuse that is obvious to everyone else around them, because they are in love with a man. These are statements that still work with our society today, and this is why the play still works.

If these were actions that we couldn't relate to at all, it would not be interesting to read. But because we have all been in the shoes of one character or another, we can identify with them.