"A Midsummer Nights Dream" By William Shakespeare

Essay by holspagolHigh School, 11th grade May 2003

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GCSE English Project-'A Midsummer Nights Dream'

By William Shakespeare

'The course of true love never did run smooth...' Explain how Shakespeare demonstrates this in the play

Romance is a very popular genre for plays, films, television shows and books as it appeals to everyone in one way or another. Everyone at sometime in his or her life experiences love, whether it's a bad experience or a good one. Many of Shakespeare's plays are about love and the confusion and happiness it can cause for people e.g. Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, Antony and Cleopatra and Much Ado about nothing. A Midsummer Nights Dream is also about love and how jealousy and tampering with love can cause problems for everyone. In the play the four lovers all have very different experiences of love as they fight for the partner they truly love and want. In the play Shakespeare shows love from many different angles and how 'The course of true love never did run smooth'

From the beginning of the play love is forced upon Hermia as she has to make a choice between marrying Demetrius, spending life as a nun with no men or dying so she won't have to marry someone she doesn't love.

'Either to die the death, or to abjure forever the society of men'. Hermia does not love Demetrius and refuses to marry someone she does not truly have feelings for but Theseus asks her to consider her fathers feelings. At this time daughters were ruled by their fathers and expected to obey their every word. It shows how little faith Egeus has in his daughter's feelings. Egeus, Hermia's father would rather his daughter die than not marry Demetrius. 'As she is mine, I may dispose of her; which shall...