EAE 2D: Forbidden Love and Arranged Marriages in Shakespeare's Play

This essay examines the themes of forbidden love and arranged marriages in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, focusing on the conflicts faced by the young lovers, Hermia, Lysander, Demetrius, and Helena. The analysis explores how societal expectations and parental control, particularly Egeus's influence, create obstacles for the protagonists. The essay uses the motif of "love-out-of-balance" to illustrate the disparities and inequalities that interfere with the relationships. The essay also touches upon arranged marriages and the limited choices given to the characters. It argues that Shakespeare explores the difficulties of love through these characters and their experiences, ultimately leading the audience to abandon notions of love and laugh at the characters' afflictions. The essay includes citations from Shakespeare's play and relevant literary sources.

Massoud 1
Mary Massoud
Madam Michelle Chartrand
EAE 2D
5 June 2019
Forbidden Love and Arranged Marriages
Introduction
The course of true love never did run smooth. Lysander makes this comment to articulate
the story’s most vital theme- forbidden love and arranged marriage or the difficulties of love (I,
1, 134). This paper argues that Shakespeare has explored the theme of forbidden love and
arranged marriages via the motif of “love-out-of-balance” that is, romantic solutions whereby
an inequality or disparity interferes with relationship amongst as displayed through forbidden
love amongst the 4 young Athenians: Lysander loves Hermia, Hermia loves Lysander,
Demetrius loves Hermia and Helena loves Demetrius-a modest numeric disparity whereby two
male characters love same woman and leave 1 lady with numerous suitors and another with less.
Discussion
Shakespeare explored the conflict of forbidden love or desire through the experience of
the four young lovers who dwell in ancient Greece. Lysander and Hermia remain two of these
lovers, and their particular desire to marry each other stays prohibited by the father of Hermia
called Egeus which is enforced effectively by the governor of Athenian law-King Theseus.
Lysander consequently jibes at Demetrious: “You have her father’s love, Demetrius; Let me
have Hermia’s: do you marry him (I. 1, 98-99). This demonstrates their forbidden love.
Arranged marriage is revealed when Hermia gets informed that she might solely agree to
one of such three undesirable choices as marrying Demetrius against her will, celibate her life as

Massoud 2
a nun, submit to the austere, or some execution. This is supported by Egeus reply to Lysander,
“Scornful Lysander! True, he hath my love, and what is mine my love shall render him”
(Shakespeare I. 1, 100-101). Hermia having been confronted with such dreadful alternatives
consents to flee towards the remote house of the widowed aunt of Lysander, in the Greece wood.
Lysander and Hermia lose their way in silent, moonlight and drift into sleep while wandering in
the nearby forest.
There is no genuine relationship to be realized in the story. Indeed, love of Hermia and
Lysander which could be regarded honest becomes compromised easily with the utilization of a
slight magic. Also, Theseus woos Hippolyta using his sword alongside the endeavor towards
forced matrimony between Demetrius and Hermia by the masculine decree that love is further
never a genuine requirement in marriage (Gage 65). Although most of the story conflict stems
from romance troubles, the play encompasses a range of romance aspects, yet it is never
genuinely a love comedy as it detaches its spectators from characters’ emotions to poke fun at
the afflictions and torments suffered by the characters in love (McKeown and Sarah 37).
Conclusion
This essay has argued that it is a story full of forbidden love and arranged marriage as
seen through the characters of Hermia, Helena, Demetrius. Thus, the play’s audiences have to
abandon the notions of love. The author makes love a punch-line and it is needless to get
disenchanted with this forbidden love when one can rather laugh at it (Loomba 200).

Massoud 3
Works Cited
Gage, Rosann. "A Discussion of Dramatic Form through 20th and 21st Century Illustrated Prose
Adaptations for Children of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream." Selected
Papers of the Ohio Valley Shakespeare Conference. Vol. 10. No. 1. 2019.
Loomba, Ania. "The Great Indian Vanishing Trick–Colonialism, Property, and the Family in A
Midsummer Night's Dream." A Feminist Companion to Shakespeare (2016): 179-205.
McKeown, Roderick H., and Sarah Star. "A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Stratford
Festival." Scene: Reviews of Early Modern Drama 1 (2017): 37.
Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night's Dream (Norton Critical Editions). WW Norton &
Company, 2018.

Massoud 4
Appendix: Brainstorming
Hermia and Lysander forbidden love
Hermia arranged love to Demetrious
Egeus preference for Demetrious
Titania’s speech of her rapturous love for an ass