The Illusion of Love in MND

In his comedies, Shakespeare examines love, and all the various ways that it manifests itself in the human experience.  In A Midsummer Night's Dream, he uses another thematic proposition, illusion versus reality, to help him investigate the question of human love and how and/or why we fall in and out of love.

I think the main device in this play, concerning love as illusion versus reality, is the love juice provided by Oberon.  His interest to punish Titania by using it to make her believe that she is in love with a "wild thing," and also to assist the broken-hearted Helena in winning the love of Demetrius.  The fickleness and the unexplained origin of a human's "falling in love" are demonstrated onstage through the power that Oberon (and Puck) wields in this regard through the juice of a flower.

Of course, since Midsummer is a comedy, there are complications and mix-ups that must ensue, so Puck not only causes a "wild thing" (Bottom, as Puck has transformed him into an ass) to fall in love with Titania and Demetrius to fall in love with Helena, he also mistakenly causes Lysander to fall in love with Helena, creating the great comic "fight scene" in the woods between the four lovers. This demostrates how easy is it to manipulate love and affectons for the Fairy King.

Illusion versus reality is also demonstrated through the references made throughout the play that remind the audience that they are participating in the theatrical world "of illusion" --a world of fairies and magic in which whatever the playwright desires can happen and any mix-ups or troubles that the characters find themselves in, can be made right in an instant. At the play's end, Puck himself alludes to this contrast between illusion (theatre) and reality (the real world) with his lines:

If we shadows have offended

Think but this, and all is mended--

That you have but slumbered here

While this visions did appear.

And this weak and idle theme,

No more yielding than a dream.

Let me know what you think :)

REFERENCES:

Richter, N (2010) A Midsummer Night's Dream: Imagination, Romantic Love, and the Creation of Art Retrieved from http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/130/a-midsummer-nights-dream-imagination-romantic-love-and-the-creation-of-art

Shakespeare, W. A Midsummer Night's Dream