Essay on Forbidden Desire in Shakespeares A Midsummer...

Forbidden Desire in Shakespeares A Midsummer Nights Dream In his play A Midsummer Nights Dream, William Shakespeare explores the conflict of forbidden desire, as revealed through the experience of four young lovers dwelling in ancient Greece. Hermia and Lysander are two of these lovers, and their desire to marry one another is prohibited by Hermias father Egeus, and enforced by the governor of Athenian law-King Theseus. Hermia is informed that she may only agree to one of three undesirable choices: marry Demetrius unwillingly, submit to an austere, celibate life as a nun, or face certain execution. Confronted with these dreadful options, Hermia agrees to flee from Athens towards the remote house of Lysanders widowed aunt, in the†¦show more content†¦By moving the setting outside of the established law of Athens, closer to the undeveloped, primitive realm of the wood, Shakespeare is allowing his characters the undetermined experience of nature, thus metaphorically allowing them proximity to an uninhibited realm of socially undetermi ned reality through nature. This is important, as a prominent question addressed within this play is: What are the consequences of socially forbidding the desires of lovers? The most immediate consequence of forbidding their desires is witnessed in their fleeing the prohibitions of Athens, and venturing out into the uninhibited mandate of nature, where civil human laws are irrelevant and absent. In venturing away from Athens into the wood, the four lovers encounter both the familiar and the unfamiliar in the darkness, via their dreams. By juxtaposing dream states with wakened states, and scenes of daylight with darkness, Shakespeare is conveying transitions from conscious to unconscious states. In illustration, upon awaking from one dream episode, Hermia exclaims: Methought a serpent ate my heart away, and you sat smiling at his cruel prey (2.2, 155). Here Hermia encounters what Freud describes as the uncanny: that which is paradoxically unfamiliar, and yet familiar. As Freud maintains of the uncanny: Every emotional effect [that one has experiencedShow MoreRelatedEssay on A Midsummer Night’s Dream: The Variations of Love900 Words   |  4 PagesLove is only as strong as the people who share it. In William Shakespeare’s play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, there are relationships from all different viewpoints of love. Four Athenian lovers are caught in a web of love for the wrong person, according to fellow peevish characters. 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