A Midsummer Night's Dream-The Fickle Nature Of Love

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The Fickle Nature of Love

Love is often a whirlwind of unexpected feelings and emotions, taking people on unpredictable journeys of intense highs and lows - and William Shakespeare knows it. Shakespeare manages to capture this element of unpredictability and unexpectedness within all the relationships displayed in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Throughout all of the love relationships that are shown to the audience in the play, the theme “love is unpredictable” manages to be entwined in the midst of it all, be it among the young and rash lovers or in the mature relationships depicted.
In the play, Lysander says that “The course of true love never did run smooth.” (I:i:136) Lysander and Hermia’s relationship whisks them away into the forest, where …show more content…

The love-in-idleness flower nectar plays a big part in demonstrating the unpredictability of love, since “[t]he juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid / Will make or man or woman madly dote” (II:i:155-156) This potion depicts the whole love-at-first-sight trope, and shows how volatile people are when it comes to love, especially when it’s merely superficial. Titania’s condition was caused by Oberon, who might have been slightly jealous of Theseus. Love caused Oberon to do things that Titania would probably have never predicted he would do, and Titania falling in love with a creature like Bottom could never have been planned. She clearly did not believe that such a thing could have happened, as she says, “Methought I was enamored of an ass” (IV:i:60) - and yet that is exactly what happened. While in that state, she had been madly in love with someone that she would have never even glanced at before. This illustrates how love can be blinding, causing one to turn a blind eye to everything else when in love. Love isn’t always unpredictable in a pleasant way - it can also often lead people down paths that aren’t necessarily desired, such as was shown with Titania and

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