Essay: Love is blind – A Midsummer’s Night Dream

What is love? Love is arguably the most powerful, intense, controlling emotion we humans are capable of feeling. It’s random and surprising but unfortunately, it can also take you on an unintended journey full of risks; it can turn your life upside down. Love comes in all shapes, sizes, and forms especially nowadays as the times are changing and the world is becoming increasingly progressive almost as if our eyes were suddenly opened. This emotion, in particular, leads people to act blindly and make irrational decisions. This “blind” behavior also illustrates a lack of substance in a relationship based off of “true love.” Eyes and seeing play a significant role in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer’s Night Dream. The love potion and its cure are anointed to the eyelids to change the feelings the affected characters have for one another and therefore cause chaos in the form of senseless humor. Playwright William Shakespeare incorporates the idea that love is blind throughout A Midsummer’s Night Dream in order to create humor throughout the comedy.
At the beginning of the play when Hermia and Lysander are arguing with Theseus, Demetrius, and Egeus, Hermia proclaims, “I would my father looked but with my eyes.” Theseus replies, “Rather your eyes must with his judgment look.” Lysander responds to this situation by saying, “You have her father’s love, Demetrius. Let me have Hermia’s: do you marry him.” Hermia’s eyes and her father’s see differently; Hermia’s are blinded greatly by her love for Lysander while similarly Egeus- her father- is blinded by his respect and favor towards Demetrius and refuses to give up his love for control as an authority figure.
In Act 1 Scene 1, Helena says, “Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind; And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.” We can see the truth behind this statement during Oberon and Titania’s fight over Titania’s Indian boy because she refuses to give him to Oberon. As a result, Oberon takes matters into his own hands and orders Puck to inflict the love potion upon Titania’s eyes. Because she heard Bottom’s song, Titania had awakened and fallen deeply in love with Bottom in the form of a man with an ass’s head. She confesses her love for him saying, “I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again. Mine ear is much enamoured of thy note, so is mine eye enthralled to thy shape, and thy fair virtue’s force perforce doth move me on the first view to say, to swear, I love thee.” This is hilarious because Titania- the beautiful, angelic queen of the fairies- swears she is head over heels in love with Bottom, a lower-middle-class weaver who at the time had the head of an ass.
Later, in Act 2 Scene 2, Helena follows Demetrius into the forest as he chases after Hermia and Lysander because she fell in love with him. She says, “I am your spaniel: spurn me, strike me, neglect me, lose me; only give me leave to follow you.” Demetrius soon is also put under the spell of the love potion and he ends up blindly falling in love with Helena. The love potion’s effects are never lifted from Demetrius so he will forever love Helena when in actuality he loves Hermia who loves Lysander. Likewise, Lysander is put under the love spell and falls in love with Helena and promises to love her forever saying, “Stay, gentle Helena; hear my excuse:My love, my life my soul, fair Helena!” This messed up love square makes the play extremely comical due to its many surprising plot twists and as a result, keeps the reader’s attention.
Shakespeare’s use of blind love in A Midsummer’s Night Dream showcased how love can make us do crazy things with amusing consequences. With Titania and Bottom, social status didn’t tear them apart because their love drove them so determinedly. This shows that love is blind, whether you are rich or poor. It is also humorous because Titania is royalty and Bottom is just average. It is ironic how love can be changed with the potion, creating a sense of blind loyalty. Titania blindly loves an ass, Demetrius and Lysander flip flop from loving Hermia to Helena and when Lysander is cured, he goes back to loving Hermia wholeheartedly. Helena feels like a pawn because she believes this all to be a cruel joke. This comedy shows the theme that love is blind in two ways: physical appearances and social statuses are overlooked and also literal blindness when the love potion is used on the characters to shift their love from one person to another.
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