Love is defined as a strong affection, attachment, or devotion to a person or persons. Many people tend to think that if you are young , you cannot possibly be in love at thee same time. It is believed that especially when you are in your teenage year that you are too young to know whether or not you are really in love, but who can really say that they know the true meaning of love whether they are young or old. Despite all of this, there are still those people out there that believe in love at first sight and love being blind.
In William Shakespears play A Midsummer Nights Dream he tells the story of four young Athenian teens who fall in love with each other, the queen of the fairies who falls in love with a man who has the head of a donkey, and the queen of the Amazons who falls in love with the duke of Athens who captures her from the rest of the Amazons. Sight plays a significant role to the to all of these circumstances that occur within the story. Demetrius, Helena, Lysander, and Hermia are the for young teens of the story. At the beginning of the play it is Lysander and Helena who are madly in love, and are planning to to escape from Athens to elope.
Helena is in love with Demetrius, and Demetrius cared for Helena and liked her a lot but was not in love with her. As soon as Demetrius sees Hermia he immediately stops having any feelings for Helena whatsoever and is deeply in love with Hermia. Demetrius thought that he had fallen in love at first sight, but Helena was determined to show him differently. Demetrius: Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit,/ For I am sick when I do look on thee. Helena: And I am sick when I look not on you. (Act II, sc. lines 218-220)
This piece of dialogue shows how much Demetrius is now in love with Hermia from just seeing her, and how disgusted he feels when he looks upon Helena who he used to care about. Helena is simply just expressing how much she is love with Demetrius and how bad she feels that he is treating her in such a manner of hatred. Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind;/ And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind. / Nor hath Loves mind of any judgment taste. / Wings, and no eyes, figure unheedy taste. (Act I, sc. i, lines 240-243) Helena is implying here that since Cupid is blind that automatically makes love blind.
When Oberon tries to make Demetrius fall back in love with Hermia he orders his servant Puckto pour the nectar of the flower into Demetrius eyes to make him fall in love with the first thing that he sees. Puck ends up putting the juice in Lysanders eyes, and has to then correct things by adding the nectar juice into Demetrius eyes and then reapplying it to Lysanders eyes. Applying the nectar juice into the eyes of these young Athenians is interfering with their vision to make them believe that they are really in love with the first thing that they see. And with the juice of this Ill streak her eyes/ And make her full of hateful fantasies.
When Oberon is saying this to Puck he is telling him what the flower juice does to the persons eyes which whom it is anointed on. He is saying that he wants Puck to anoint Titania with the nectar juice to make her have hateful fantasies with the first ugly animal that comes along. Titania falling in love with Bottom who had the head of a donkey is showing the effect that the nectar juice has, how it made her blind and she was able to fall in love with bottom no matter what he looked like. In this play A Midsummer Nights Dream William Shakespeare makes the significance of sight to become so important within the story.
I believe that the reason for this is because the first time you meet a person, your first impression of them is what you see with your eyes. I think that Shakespeare was trying to show us that there is no real such thing as love at first sight unless there is some type of magic involved. This goes back to what the definition of love is, how could anybody possibly be attached to a person so much, and be willing to devote themselves entirely to a person that they have only seen, and you know nothing about their personality. Love is something that develops over time is something that she cherished and not taken advantage of once it is gained.
