Love?

Helena loves Demetrius, who loves Hermia, who loves Lysander. At first this seems like your mundane, high school love triangle, or should I say love square. However, upon closer inspection, what emerges is a glimpse into a society with a dichotomous view in regards to feelings of love with respect to a man and with respect to a woman. Several moments in Acts I and II of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream convey the idea that a woman in love is somehow more compelled by irrational, fleeting fancies and foolish whims, while a man in love is driven by logic, sense, and reason.

First Egeus, father of Hermia, complains to Theseus that Lysander has somehow “bewitched the bosom of [his] child,” insinuating that Hermia is not in love of her own accord, but rather entranced by Lysander (Shakespeare 1.1.27). Despite Hermia’s articulate attempts at both validating her sentiments and championing her right to choose love on her own terms, she is told to “question her desires,” and is harshly reminded that, ultimately, her father has final say (Shakespeare 1.1.67). She is treated as though the love she supposedly feels is superficial and fleeting, and that if she succumbs to the whims of her father, she will suddenly discover that what she thought was love was actually nothing of the sort. Thus, the supposed “logical” question is posed to the “irrational” girl – life without love, or no life at all?

Helena too, is depicted as someone whose love is both irrational and fleeting. During both Acts I and II, we are repeatedly allowed into the thoughts of Helena, whose soliloquies are filled with so much love and pain, that as a reader you feel almost embarrassed to voyeuristically witness her heart wrenching lamentations. At face value she seems obsessed with Demetrius, openly willing to forego everyone and everything for the simple gift of being able to be near him. Yet, it cannot be forgotten that at one point her love was reciprocated by Demetrius. Why is it that her love is considered fleeting and irrational? Late in Act II, when Puck unknowingly applies the love flower to Lysander, and he awakens to the realization that it is Helena, not Hermia, that he loves, we see his love validated by logic. Demetrius tells Helena that he was young until that very moment, and that he was “ripe not to reason,” but now that he is able to understand reason and logic, they have “become the marshal to [his] will / And leads [him] to [Helena’s] eyes” (Shakespeare 2.2.124, 126-127). Again, whose love is fleeting and irrational?

These ideas open to a host of questions. Was Shakespeare mocking the belief that men are lead by logic, while women are lead by emotion? Is love ever really logical? Is love ever really irrational? Just because Helena’s love is unrequited, is it any less pure? And finally, is it possible to really be in love with someone, if they don’t return that love?