Love In A Midsummer Night's Dream By William Shakespeare

“Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.” -Erich Fromm

In Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream the sexes are portrayed in many different ways through many different characters. Though the sexes are portrayed in many different ways, there is one view that is repeated twice. This view is that of a dominant male figure. This view is showed through the characters of Theseus and Hippolyta and also through the characters of Hermia and Egeus. Both of these relationships are dynamic, yet they are both still based on the idea of a dominant male figure.

Penelope and Ada are both lovers of the main character. Penelope is the wife of Odysseus. She patiently waits for her husband to return for multiple years and becomes surprised when he returns home because she believed her husband’s identity was hidden by the Gods. When Odysseus revealed his true self, she admitted, “I cannot speak to him, I cannot question him/ I cannot keep my eyes upon his face” (Homer, book 23, line 1323-1324). In Odysseus head, Penelope is a complete beauty. Ada is the female lover for Inman in the novel. She was waiting for him to return while being pregnant with his child. She is also completely surprised when her husband returns. Another identical characters are Calypso and Sara. The two ladies have a desire for the main characters. Sara admires Inman and wants him to replace the role of her husband. “If I was to ask you to come over here and lay in bed with me but not do a thing, could you do it?” (Frazier, 1997, p.309 ). While Calypso wants to keep Odysseus trapped in her island, so he can fall in love her. The epic poem explained Odysseus and Calypso’s relationship, “He lay with her each night for she compelled him.” (Homer, book 5, line 83). Between both ladies, they have an outstanding beauty. Odysseus admits to Calypso that her beauty may be more impressive than Penelope. He generously told Calypso, “...would seem a shade

Throughout history, men have always dominated. They never let a woman rise to power or have the same rights. This sexism has been ingrained in society for thousands of years, so much so that it has defined some of the most famous works of literature, including A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This play was written during the Elizabethan Era, an era in which a woman had all the power imaginable (Queen Elizabeth), and yet, women were still severely discriminated against. Women had no say whatsoever in their society; they were not allowed to vote and they had very few legal rights (Papp, Joseph, Kirkland). They were could not enter the professions (lawyer, priest, doctor, etc.) and they by law, needed the permission of a husband, father, or any male-head

Helena, one of the main characters of this Shakespearean comedy, expresses her thoughts on love through a soliloquy. This soliloquy is written in verse and in “iambic pentameter” - five unaccented syllables, each followed by an accented one - as the rest of the play is, but with the characteristic that it rhymes. The soliloquy is composed of “heroic couplets” - rhyming verse in iambic pentameter- in opposition to “blank verse” - unrhymed iambic pentameter- which is the predominant type of verse in the play.

Does Penelope exhibit any substantial moral agency in Homer’s Odyssey or is she just another pawn in the patriarchal game of getting glory for the guys? I SHALL ARGUE THAT Penelope plays a vital role in the way that the Odyssey plays out. Penelope, unlike other female characters in the classical world, shapes the way that her life unfolds. Through her actions in this epic poem, not only does Penelope create her own destiny, she gets her own glory.

The quote from Sigmund Freud, “One is very crazy when in love.” is very relateable to Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream. Love is the dominant theme of the play. With the major conflicts surrounding the topic of love. Shakespeare demonstrates two major types of love. Parental love and a regular man and woman relationship. The parental love is between Titania and her “Changeling child” she’s taking care of. This causes a lovers spat between her and Oberon who wanted the child. Hermia, Helena, Lysander, and Demetrius have a convoluted love square that changes many times in the course of Shakespeare’s play. In Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, crazy love is a major theme.

Yesterday, at midnight residents of Athens, Lysander and Hermia got caught eloping in the forest by Demetrius.

“That was the last, Odysseus told Penelope, just as sleep overcame him…sleep losing his limbs, slipping the toils of anguish from his mind,(Homer, 466)” The jubilant day suddenly felt somber to the still awake maid, Eurycleia; a draft abruptly traveled through her room,

Have you ever fallen in love with someone who has no interest in you and doesn’t love you back? Did that person suddenly start loving you out of nowhere? In A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, Helena’s hunger for love brings out a desperate side in her and takes her through interesting adventures with love. One can infer that love is hurtful by how Helena reacts to love in a foolish manner and remains skeptical about it even near the end of the play.

The Odyssey by Homer contains multiple moments where female characters are oppressed or fit into a patriarchy, but there are several moments where these character show signs of rebellion against this oppression. Applying a critical lense of feminism to these characters and relationships create complexities and conflicts within the novel that shine meaning on the world. The character Penelope offers many of these moments. Analyzing the actions, situation, and comparisons with other characters using a the feminist critical lense will show a more enriched version of Penelope and offer a deeper insight of the patriarchy, and how is affects the world.

The union of both sexes is a notable metaphor in both “Symposium” and “Lysistrata”; however, the nature of the love between the sexes draws a distinction between both works. In Symposium, Aristophanes described how both sexes were so powerful when united; and when they were separated, human beings still strived to be united once more by any means. On the other hand, in Lysistrata the characters were already married and united; however, women found their true strength when they started a psychological war on their men. Even though both works drew the readers’ attention to the need for love, Symposium emphasizes the union of sexes in a way that the characters in Lysistrata will never reach; where love is not only about sex and physical attraction, but it’s also about a healthy relationship occupied with affection and caring.

Euripides’ The Trojan Women expresses the disbelief and hope of ancient Greek women during the Trojan war. The characterization and dialogue between Hecuba, Andromache, and Cassandra, shows the role of women in society during that time, as well as their different prerogatives towards the war and its consequences. Likewise, The Odyssey by Homer uses the main female character, Penelope, to convey the role of women and their opinions towards the social changes from the war. Both texts, collectively, use dialogue to develop hopeful and hopeless ideas within the women of ancient Greece.

Aristophanes and Sophocles both wrote similar arts that have been studied over the years. Antigone by Sophocles and Lysistrata by Aristophanes are two works of art that have many differences but they both assess an important point at the end. Out of all the differences between both of these plays, the one I consider most important is how each play ends according to the type of style it is. Even though the main characters of both of these plays were women, in Lysistrata, both the women and (eventually at the end) the men praise her for her beliefs, while in Antigone, almost everyone goes against what she feels is right which results in her death. The reason why this difference between Antigone (tragedy) and Lysistrata (comedy) is most important

Shakespeare lived in the time period that we call the Elizabethan era covering the years of 1558 to 1603; this is considered a part of the golden age of the Tudor period during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. William Shakespeare was a famous playwright and poet who lived between the years 1564 and 1596 (Pressley, 2005). He wrote the play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream between the years 1595 and 1596. The play whose main theme is love happens to also be full of magic, fairies, and as well as comedy; it is a play full of mischief and illusion. Shakespeare also used magic to create an alternate world in which the characters find themselves trapped by Puck’s love spell; even Titania, the Fairy King Oberon’s wife, is enchanted by Puck’s spell. Shakespeare did not try to create this alternative world to be simple in nature if anything it is as complex as the real world but it is a world created by magic. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream Shakespeare makes use of fairies, who in his world are