A Midsummer Night’s Dream delves into the intricacies of love by depicting a variety of romantic relationships. The play contains romantic tropes that still exist in the romantic comedy genre today, but the tropes are not portrayed in a conventional way. A Midsummer Night’s Dream reveals how love is not always a rewarding experience, and that love can be painful, complicated, and fickle. In the beginning of the play Lysander and Hermia represent overpowering romantic love, while Helena and Demetrius represent unrequited love. Each relationship explores how romance and love impact our experience in the world. Shakespeare does not try to depict love as beautiful and all-fulfilling, and instead reveals how love often consists of hardships and turmoil. For example, Helena’s unrequited love for Demetrius makes her feel alone, but it also distorts her perception of herself. She states, “Call you me fair? That ‘fair’ again unsay. / Demetrius loves your fair…Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated, / The rest I’d give to be to you translated” (1.1.181-182,190-191). Helena’s love for Demetrius invokes detrimental self loathing, and it makes her truly believe that she should be someone else. Romantic comedies often attempt to depict the power of love to overcome all odds, but A Midsummer Night’s Dream reveals how love has the ability to destroy an individual’s self worth. Helena’s self loathing becomes so intense that even when Lysander pronounces his love for her she does not believe him. She states, “Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born? / When at your hands did I deserve this scorn? (2.2.123-124). Helena’s unrequited love with Demetrius distorts her perception of herself so much that she perceives anyone’s affection towards her as a joke. Helena’s experience in the play reveals how love does not always build us up and make us happier, but instead can tear us down and debilitate our ability to form romantic relationships with others.
Lysander and Hermia’s relationship explores the complexities of powerful romantic love, and how that type of relationship can also have its downfalls. Hermia loves Lysander so much that she is willing to leave her home to be with him, but their relationship reveals how even the most powerful and all-consuming love can still be fickle and erratic. In the woods Lysander vows his love to Hermia, stating, “I mean that my heart unto yours is knit,/ So that but one heart we can make of it. / Two bosoms interchainéd with an oath” (2.2.47-49). But a love potion is all it takes for Lysander to abandon Hermia, and even though the love potion is a supernatural element it is still symbolic of the constant change in human emotions. Hormones and human emotions have the power to inflict the same types of feelings as the love potion, and they can work just as quickly. It is heartwarming to believe that love is a consistent feeling of powerful devotion, but Shakespeare depicts how human emotion can be constantly changing. Hermia and Helena’s experience of love are distinctly different, but both of their relationship uncover how love can be painful and emotionally burdening. Ultimately Shakespeare is able to defy the romantic comedy genre by depicting the realistic and troubling intricacies of love.
I think what you pointed out about Helena’s self-concept hinging on Demetrius’ opinion of her is a really important part of the play, thematically. We see the love potions as being these crazy confounding factors in these people’s lives, but Helena feels that same “irrational” compulsion naturally through her infatuation with a man who doesn’t love her. And because all she’s ever gotten in response to her devotion is rejection, when she finally is loved, it doesn’t square with her idea of the role love can play in her life—what she is allowed to get in return, or what she warrants independently as a human being. It’s a great example of using something exaggerated and fantastical to point out something about human nature we might otherwise overlook.
I really like your point about Shakespeare “depicting the realistic and troubling intricacies of love,” especially when it comes to Helena and her relationship with both Lysander and Demetrius. You refer to her disbelief at Lysander’s expression of affection for her because her self-worth is so low after Demetrius’s constant earlier rejection, and I think that point is even more interesting when later parts of the play are taken into account: Demetrius is also put under the effects of the love potion and expresses love for her, and she also thinks that he is mocking her. She is so used to his utter rejection that when he actually appears to return her feelings, she still doesn’t believe it. It makes me wonder what Shakespeare is saying later (or, to leave Shakespeare out of it, what it means later) when things are “put right” but Demetrius is still under the effects of the potion and Helena accepts his “love.”