A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a classic play written by William Shakespeare that displays traits of love, anger, and jealousy all with twists of magic embedded into the script. There is a lot of complications with the relationships in the play, resulting in some jealousy between the couples. These relationships are a main part of the script and make up a big part of what influences the events in the story. My new cover was inspired by the reoccurring theme of jealousy seen throughout the couples. I will be focusing on the trait of jealousy, and how it influenced the characters actions and determined the events throughout the story. My cover would have Hermia running away on the right side of the book to avoid all of her problems and live a happy life alongside Lysander, while Demetrius is chasing after Hermia, and Helena is chasing after Demetrius. The reasoning behind this cover is to display how these characters spew jealousy, and how it is prevalent and significant in the play.
The theme of jealousy is very prominent throughout the script. The most obvious form of jealousy is between Helena, Demetrious, and Hermia. Helena is in love with Demetrious, while Demetrious wants to marry Hermia, all while Hermia wants nothing to do with them. This love feud is all due to Hermia not being allowed to marry Lysander, causing them to run away into the forest. Helena’s is so infatuated with Demetrius that she snitches on the lovers and follows Demetrius into the woods. Helena’s desire for Demetrius is so strong that she is willing to subjugate herself completely, “I am your spaniel, and, Demetrius, the more you beat me, I will fawn on you. Use me but as your spaniel—spurn me, strike me, neglect me, lose me. Only give me leave, Unworthy as I am, to follow you.” (2.1.203-207). The relevance of the scene where Hermia and Lysander run away is important because it is what drives the rest of the play. If they made the choice to comply with the king’s orders to marry Demetrius, then you would no longer have a play. For this reason, the jealousy was a turning point in the story that drove the couples to rebel.
Another form of jealousy was when Puck accidently made both Demetrius and Lysander fall in love with Helena, leading Hermia to experience jealousy of her own. She immediately starts to think less of herself and her choice in love. In her feelings of misery and insecurity, she even suggests it is Helena’s height that caused the two men to contradict their affection for her, saying “Now I perceive that she hath made compare/ Between our statures; she hath urged her height.” (3.2.290-291). The boys start to use this against her, with Lysander exclaiming, “Get you gone, you dwarf; you minimus, of hindering knot-grass made; You bead, you acorn.” (3.2.329-231). Hermia’s jealousy caused her self-esteem to decrease considerably, causing the men to think less of her, similar to what happened between Helena and Demetrius earlier. In addition, her jealousy takes over and causes her to become enraged to the point of physical violence toward Helena. In one line, she states, “How low am I? I am not yet so low/ But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.” (3.2.297-298). This threat is toward Helena who used to be a good friend but now Hermia feels betrayed by her childhood friend. This shows how jealousy can lead people to be enraged and fuels all the events that occurred.
The dominant influence of jealousy is seen throughout A Midsummer Night’s Dream and commonly seen throughout life. From everyday lives of just about everybody, to characters in a book, jealousy is a resilient and unpredictable emotion. In this play, there are two similar examples of jealousy between Helena, Hermia, who are jealous of each other, and Demetrius and Helena who experience jealousy due to Hermia’s actions. Jealousy clearly influences almost every character as well as every major plot turn in this play. For this reason, it is in my opinion the most important theme of the play.
Section B: Mythology and the Hero’s Journey
A hero is someone who is admired for their courage, bravery and outstanding achievements. The movie Frozen, produced by Walt Disney, shows a strong correlation with a hero’s journey. Anna, the hero in the movie, needs to find her sister Elsa, the new queen of Arendelle to end the curse of a bitter winter. Elsa’s powers overtook her at the coronation and caused her to freeze her beloved town Arendelle, leaving her to run away in embarrassment. With the help of friends, Anna learns lessons throughout her journey that teaches her that life is more than playing and having fun in her grand castle. Throughout this essay I will focus on the call to adventure theory in a hero’s journey. True love is the reason Anna is called on this adventure and it is the overall theme that powers Anna while on her journey.
The call to adventure theory blossoms when the hero is faced with something that makes him/her begin their adventure. For the most part it is usually a problem or challenge that needs to be overcome. The call to adventure all started at Elsa’s coronation ceremony where Anna is convinced she has found her ‘true love’, Hans, after meeting him for only an hour. They ask for Elsa’s blessing in marriage, leading to a huge fight between the sisters. This results in Elsa losing control of her powers and freezing Arendelle. The problem Anna faced was that her sister had just used her magical powers to accidently freeze Arendelle, then fled the town even though Elsa is the only one who can fix this disaster. Anna’s task was to find her sister and bring her back to unfreeze their cherished town. Anna thought she found true love with Hans, but she leaves him behind to chase after her true love Elsa, to help save their town.
True love radiates between the sisters throughout the movie. If Anna did not truly love her sister, she would not have accepted the call to adventure in the first place. However, she does and because of this, she realizes that the men in her life do not matter as much as family does. She realizes that they were not meant to be in her life and this realization occurs when she risks her life in order to save Elsa. Just when Elsa was about to get killed by Han, partially frozen Anna stepped in front of the sword to save her life. Anna was frozen entirely seconds before the sword hit her resulting in the sword shattering. With the power of true love, Elsa unfreezes Anna frozen heart with a hug that validates the love they have for one another. All of this was possible because Anna followed her heart and accepted the call of adventure to save her true love.
Anna starts off her call to adventure with a choice; to stay or to go. She chose to go and fight with all of her love to hunt down her sister to help save Arendelle. Her call to adventure resulted in her journey to find love which ended up being something she has all along with her family. The overall theme to this story is true love, which is the trait that fueled Anna not only on her call to adventure but it was also the trait that ignited the fire in her to save the life of her beloved sister.