by Alexander Lourenco

Created on: July 31, 2008

Midsummer Night's Dream is, on the surface, a casual and comical play about lovers who chase each other, fairies who confound these lovers before setting everything right at the end. It is certainly a story that evokes a light and fun-filled atmosphere, but beneath the surface there is a disturbing commentary on the state of identity and free will throughout the play; more specifically, we are concerned with the identity of the lovers in regards to the objects of their affections and how easily the objects are manipulated by Puck.

Consider that, at the beginning of the story, the lovers are firm in their affections. Lysander and Hermia are in love and plan to run away in a whirl of romance; Demetrius also lusts after Hermia, leaving poor Helena to comment on the nature of love and loneliness, for she loves Demetrius even though he pays her no notice. The love these characters feel is to them real and immutable, and at this point in the story Lysander would never decry his love for Hermia. The same goes for Demetrius; he in fact has some very strong words for Helena when she confronts him, and it is quite clear to everyone that he wants nothing to do with her, instead focusing all his attentions on Hermia.

The disturbing part of the play comes when the fairies send Puck to remedy this situation. He places love potion on Lysander and Demetrius' eyes, but through a series of comical mishaps he ends up making both Lysander and Demetrius fall deeply in love with poor Helena. She believes that they mock her, and indeed she is right to deny them- Helena, like the audience, cannot help but feel there is something false about the love that both men suddenly feel for her.

As the play is a comedy, of course all is righted in the end- Puck applies the love potion to the right couples and they emerge from the forest with only hazy, dreamlike memories of the events that befell them. At first this seems a happy ending, but the implications of it are frightening. Love is, for most people, something strong and everlasting; someone in the throes of love would sooner die than harm their loved one or switch their affections to another. But think how easily the object of love was changed here! With one drop of love potion, Puck was able to undo everything Lysander and Demetrius felt for Hermia. It is only a matter of chance that Lysander was not made to love Helena instead of Hermia; the couples could quite easily have been swapped and turned around, for the potion would have made them feel that their love, however, artificial, was real and natural.

Love is something unique, something powerful; many of us like to believe in soul mates or some other, indefinable aspect that pairs couples together in a union that can be had by no one else. There is something unnerving about a love potion being able to change love so quickly and so powerfully; who are we, after all, if we are not in control of ourselves? If our very minds and hearts are in control of others, we may as well be faceless, at the mercy of our controllers to shape us however they see fit.

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