Themes

• Love

  One of the main themes in A Midsummer Night's Dream
• Love in A Midsummer Night's Dream

  • Presented as whimsical and humorous rather than serious and passionate
• Forms of love explored in the play

  • Romantic
  • Unrequited
  • Enchanted
• Characters' experiences of love

  • Hermia and Lysander represent true love
  • Helena experiences the pain of unrequited love
  • Oberon and Titania's love is jealous and unstable
  • Several characters experience false love or a fleeting infatuation as a result of Oberon's magical intervention
• Love potion

  Causes humorous and chaotic situations, highlighting the unpredictable nature of love
• The play challenges traditional norms of love and marriage


  • Hermia and Lysander reject parental expectations to pursue their love
• The play features multiple layers of love stories

  • The intertwining plots emphasise the impact of love on different characters
• Characters' shifting feelings

  • Emphasise the fickleness of love (e.g. Demetrius shifts from pursuing Hermia to falling in love with Helena)
• The chaotic events in the play

  Are fixed and the characters find happiness through love and marriage
• Shakespeare's intention

  • To use the fairy world and Puck's mischief to portray love as unpredictable and chaotic
  • To infuse the theme of love with humour
  • To present contrasting love stories to explore different layers of love
  • To emphasise the transformative, otherworldly aspects of love through magical interference
  • To make fun of societal expectations regarding love and marriage
  • To convey the emotional depth of love through poetic and romantic language