We already feel that the path Lysander will have to take to marry Hermia will not be a smooth path. When Hermia is told she cannot marry Lysander, but instead is to marry Demetrius, she decides to run away to avoid the unhappiness that is bound to follow should she stay.
The Lovers, Hermia and Lysander, being young and inexperienced, find aspects of love very difficult to interpret. They display passion for each other in their language.
Another language device Shakespeare uses for the lovers is to antithesis,
"O cross! Too high to be enthralled to low…
O spite! Too old to be engaged to young".
This is when he puts opposing ideas together. This demonstrates well that love is very confusing, "the course of true love never did run smooth".
Shakespeare often tries to describe things in such detail to give us an image in our head of what is happening and how someone may be feeling emotionally. The lovers are soon puzzled, for their relationship begins to suffer from confusion and misunderstandings. Shakespeare shows the young lovers to be at a loss, in desperation to spend their lives with each other. Helena, Hermia's friend is determined that Demetrius (whom Egeus want his daughter to marry) will be hers. She follows him into the woods as he is seeking Hermia. Helena knows too well the fact that her love is unrequited. Shakespeare demonstrates "The course of true love never did run smooth" in this situation.
Demetrius approaches the problem of his love for Hermia with gross arrogance, trying to force Hermia to marry him, "Relent, sweet Hermia, and Lysander, yield thy crazed title to my certain right". Helena meanwhile curses her love. Knowing that Demetrius is a thing "base and vile" she still has no power but to "transpose to form and dignity".
When the lovers flee to the wood, Hermia and Lysnader eloping, Demetrius pursuing Hermia and Helena pursuing him it still seems that the "course of true love never did run smooth".
The Lovers display their personality traits with a different use of language. They are far more emotional when in speech. They are passionate when conversing and poetic, which is far more appropriate, this shows their ideas about love are more romantic and idealistic. The Lovers rather "wear their hearts on their sleeves" and they have less control. Hermia starts to use short words and disjointed phrases, which show her desperation and panic. "Lysander! What, removed? Lysander, lord! What, out of hearing? Gone? No sound, no word? Alack, where are you? Speak and if I hear. Speak, of all loves! I swoon almost with fear." when she wakes up to find Lysander gone.
Much of the lovers speech is littered with words such as "distress", "sorrow", "hatred" and "neglect", these are just few of the words which are used frequently to help to demonstrate the confusion and desperation that the Lovers experience when in love.
In the wood Hermia and Lysander lie down to sleep and have a brief tussle over whether or not they should sleep together. Hermia wins protesting that they ought to wait until their marriage, which they hoped would be very soon.
Meanwhile Demetrius is searching for them, distracted by Helena's protestations of love, "use me but as your spaniel". He insults her and tells her to go away, "do I entice you, do I speak you fair or do I not in plainest truth tell you I do not, nor I cannot love you?" When eventually Demetrius and Helena also sleep, Puck, Oberon's fairy servant accidentally causes Lysander to fall in love with Helena as a result of Oberons love potion. Naturally this angers Hermia who rages that Helena has "betrayed all school days friendship, childhood innocence". Thus even love between friends cannot always run smooth.
Eventually Oberon uses the love potion to resolve the confusion which it has previously caused.
This is a farcical situation and thus one way in which Shakespeare demonstrates the comical aspect of love. Another is the very ornate language that he uses throughout the play. Since love is a joke it is not surprising that its path is never a smooth one for the lovers.
Shakespeare's exposition of the farcical nature of love reaches its peak with the portrayal of the Mechanicals, "hard-handed men who never laboured in their minds till now". The "hard-handed men" have "toiled their unbreathed memories with this play against your (Theseus') nuptial". Their play portrays love, but this passionate, tragic love is turned to comedy with the Mechanicals' incompetence. Yet again Shakespeare uses language very much to demonstrate how they act and how they are. They use prose instead of speaking in verse. This distinguishes between the high status Court characters and the lower status common man. Speaking in prose suggests that they have no idea about expressing passion or emotions. When performing the play we see the Mechanicals getting into a muddle when trying to use more advanced language. They mishandle the play and this creates humour, in their confusion of language; "These lily lips, This cherry nose, These yellow cowslip cheeks". The use of slang from the Mechanicals also is humorous. It shows the Mechanicals lack of intelligence and at the same time shows us that they do not have too many ideas when it comes to love either. This is shown perfectly when the Mechanicals try to produce the play for the Duke's wedding.
There is a comical aspect to both their incompetence and also the fact that the audience of the play laugh at the Mechanicals inability to perform the emotion of love, yet at the same time their own ideas of love are very clouded and confused. This creates an irony when viewing "A Midsummer Night's Dream" as we see that even though the Duke, Theseus and his wife to be, Hippolyta find the plot of the Mechanicals play amusing. They do not realise that Pyramus and Thisbe's situation rather mirrors their own relationship and many other relationships in the play such as Hermia and Lysander's.
For Pyramus and Thisbe, the lovers in the play, love is impossible due to the opposition of their parents. Their decision to elope is a reflection of the decision of Lysander and Hermia; but even then, as for Lysander and Hermia, "the course of true love never did run smooth". Here their story becomes a parody of Shakespeare's tragedy "Romeo and Juliet", because each commits suicide under the impression that their lover is dead. The dreadful mistakes made by the Mechanicals turn it from tragedy to farce, but still "the course of true love never did run smooth" for Pyramus or Thisbe. The humour in the Mechanical's play is presented in many different ways. One element that provides humour is the Mechanicals blatantly inept performance and the many ways in which they misinterpret much of the play, "For Pyramus therein doth kill himself, which when I saw rehearsed I must confess, made mine eyes water; but more "merry" tears". When Quince attempts to give his prologue he is purely laughed at as "he hath played on this prologue like a child on a recorder-sound but not in government".
The Mechanicals somehow manage to display humour in a supposed "Tragedy" as firstly the wall talks, "Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so", and also Pyramus dying scene is so overacted and exaggerated it brings tears of laughter to the spectators.
Odd sentences also play an important role in creating humour within the play, the Mechanicals add random phrases, which are totally unnecessary, "with the help of a surgeon he might yet recover, and yet prove an ass".
Shakespeare creates different types of language ranging from controlled to romantic to simple to magical. These all help to distinguish between characters throughout the play. The complexity of Shakespeare's variety of language is part of what demonstrates the confusion of love throughout the play.
For the fairies too, not only is love confusing it is a rough path, an everlasting path, due to the fact that the fairies are immortal.
The Fairies' language illustrates their romantic and beautiful nature. They speak in rhyme and very romantically. Their language is very ornate and this help to show that they are immortal, supernatural and of beauty. Many of the lines from the fairies are complex and decorative; "These are the forgeries of jealousy". These poetic qualities and strengths offer more to the character and give the audience a rich store of images with which to engage them. This elegant language can be quite confusing and this is again used to illustrate the confusing aspects of true love.
The fairies are powerful, especially King Oberon and Queen Titania. They meddle in others affairs. This is shown by Oberons resolve, "I'll charm his eyes against she do appear", intending to make Demetrius fall for Helena.
They have very argumentative aspects to their personalities, shown in an argument between Oberon and Titania about the "changeling child" belonging to Titania, desired by Oberon. "This fairy land buys not the child of me". Throughout the play, especially in the Fairies' quarrel, Shakespeare uses language to try and display and paint a picture of love being a painful experience. He uses contradiction, between Oberon and Titania or within one character's thoughts.
Shakespeare often uses lists of things when writing his plays, "The ox hath therefore stretched his yoke in vain, The ploughman lost his sweat and the green corn hath rotted ere his youth attained a beard".
The fairies are also often very petty, "Ill met by moonlight proud Titania," Titania replies "What, jealous Oberon?" "Tarry, rash, wanton am I not thy Lord" Oberon argues.
They are slaves to their emotions as we see in the play. However, although they are all fairies they still have different personality properties within their group they display many human emotions and weaknesses, showing that although they are powerful they still have many mortal traits.
Oberon tries to interfere in the Lover's business but with good intent, he has a good heart and does not like to see Helena in distress. He is in a situation where he realises love is not always easy and does not like to see Helena suffering from the misfortune of unrequited love. He does not have full control over his personal love life yet does not have a problem trying to help others with theirs, "Effect it with some care that he may prove more fond on her than he upon her love".
Love is portrayed as farcical when we see that Titania expresses her love for Bottom (a Mechanical who by magic is made to look like an ass). "Love is blind" no matter what he looks like; Titania has become infatuated with him as a result of jealous Oberon putting a charm on her, as a punishment for not yielding the changeling child to him. Titania toys with Bottom almost as if he were a pet, offering him food and music, putting four fairies at his disposal and stroking his hideous cheeks. This shows that love created by a spell is not a rational love, it causes physical infatuation, and "reason and love keep little company ", proving that" the course of true love never did run smooth".
However, Oberon's trick backfires by making him jealous of Bottom. Although he knows why Titania loves the rough, unsuitable ass he cannot happily watch his wife, with whom he is in love, dote on another. This is an unexpected side effect of his mixture of love and hatred proving again that "the course of true love never did run smooth". However his trick does cause Titania to give up the "changeling child" so it does achieve its objective.
The Fairies disputes and disagreements bear out Shakespeare's view of true love.
We can see from these that "the course of true love never did run smooth" yet at the same time all is bound to be well when all the obstacles have been cleared.
The comedy in the play, especially when dealing with the Fairies and Mechanicals
Shows us how Shakespeare takes a potentially heavy topic and makes it light-hearted and into a comedy. I believe Shakespeare did this, as when presented as farce love is an issue to which even the working class could relate, whereas a tragedy assumes an audience prepared to concentrate on a deeper theme.
The structure of Shakespeare's play "A Midsummer Night's Dream" helps to keep the spectator interested. The story has four subplots. These keep the play moving and we are constantly changing between storyline. It stops the spectator getting bored of a particular character or scene. The movement between the different plots keeps the pace of the play fast. This keeps us interested. It also makes us slightly confused as well as half the characters. The confusion of the characters and the plot helps to illustrate the confusion of love. The constant swapping between the four groups keeps us guessing throughout the play and we do not quite figure out all the detail until the end. This like the confusion, is a way of comparing the structure to how Shakespeare thinks of love. Love is always a guess and a gamble; it is complicated and often takes a long time to work itself out.
If the storyline is confusing we can put ourselves in the characters shoes. They are confused about the way love is and we are confused alongside. It also prevents a spectator of the play from getting bored. We constantly have something to think about and the playgoer's mind is never at rest. This is a good portrayal of how one might feel if in love. The play is an emotional roller coaster, with the characters and plot constantly changing. The path is not smooth but one which is bumpy and windy.
Shakespeare gives a very realistic impression of love. He puts across both the good points and bad points of love. He shows the humour of love, the confusion and demonstrates well the fact that love can be very unpredictable. I think that Shakespeare was trying to show that people on different levels of the social hierarchy interpret love in different ways and also demonstrate it in different ways but he is also trying to show that love is a universal feeling. This is what makes it an ideal play theme as everyone can empathise with the characters. He tries to show that love can be a good thing but as the quote suggests "the path of true love" isn't always an easy, smooth option.
I think that the Shakespearean audience will have been equally affected by the happy ending as modern audiences are. It makes a play satisfying as by the time you have watched a play you feel as if you have formed a relationship with the characters and in general want the best for them. The audience feels satisfied and takes the play as light-hearted fun. However when a play has a tragic ending then it does not always feel complete. It feels as if there is something missing. Others however may feel that sometimes a perfect ending is unrealistic. I think that if Shakespeare had left some happiness in the play yet it was not perfect then it would have been more realistic as love is not always resolved easily and is not always perfect.
The play is still relevant to the modern day audience. We can recognise the emotions involved, as not only is love universal, but it has changed little over time. There is still a sense that love then was not quite as it is now in some of the subplots, such as in the court scenes. Love was far more for convenience and status than it is now. The situation of the lovers however mirrors better how we look at love today; sometimes a struggle; sometimes a hard path; sometimes unrequited; rarely perfect; but always true. Shakespeare demonstrates this extremely well, which is why modern day audiences still find his plays stimulating and applicable to their life styles.
Shakespeare demonstrates the quote "the course of true love never did run smooth" very well in the play "A Midsummer Night's Dream". However, rather ironically in this particular play, all ends well. It is to this day almost seen as an error to leave a play with problems so Puck is right to say "Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue we will make amends ere long…Give me your hands, if we be friends, and Robin shall restore amends". There is comfort in the knowledge that all damage has been restored.
However, the complexity and calamity in Shakespeare's play is part of what demonstrates the confusion of love; there is no one way of achieving a smooth path but instead it is an exploration in which there is no final or correct answer.
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