A Midsummer Nights Dream In the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream love was a main concept. However, in order for the emotions of love to take their place, there is a need of power to generate it. Only through power is love really made evident. The power of authority, the power to transform perceptions and the power of infatuation and romantic desire all contribute to the theme of love. Almost every character possessed a unique power that led way for much desire. Authority, magic, and complete emotion all were driving forces in contributing to the role of power.
Power was not only exemplified through authority, but was shown in many different aspects. Here we will take a look at the authoritative aspects along with the powers of perception and desire. The concept of authoritative power was surfaced quite early in the play. From here we were introduced to the relationship between Thesius and Hippolyta. In the play, the supreme ruler of Athens, Thesius ends up marring Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. However, during the whole play, Hippolyta never throughly discusses her feeling and ideas about her recent marriage.
She acts as if she had no choice but to marry Thesius. This is where, by examining Hippolyta’s position in the relationship, we see the authoritative power. Hippolyta was captured by Thesius during battle and Thesius intimidates her into marring him due to his supreme status and the fact that he has battled over her once high authority. Thesius speaks upon their ‘profound marriage and the bases to their love: “I woo’d thee by my sword / And won thy love doing thee injuries (1:1 16-20).
These couple of lines and the fact that Hippolyta never discusses her feelings about the wedding leads to the reader to believe that she doesn’t really love him but was forced into marriage due to his supremacy. Thesius’ authority is the higher power, and Hippolyta’s love (in marriage) is controlled by the duke’s selfish authority in forcing her to marry. Thesius badly displays his power here, no one should be forced into such a influential situation in their life. Another example of badly presented authoritative behavior isin the relationship between Egeus and his daughter Hermia.
In Act one, Hermia confesses her love for Lysander to her father which creates great anger on Egeus’ part. Egeus is very upset because Hermia is defying his wishes for her to marry the man that he has chose, Demetrius. When Hermia objects to her fathers wishes, Egeus threatens to continue her lasting virginity for the rest of her life and even sends the treat of death; “As she is mine I may dispose of her / which shall be either to this gentlemen / or to her death according to our law / Immediately provided in that case” (1:1 43-46).
We clearly see that the positional authoritative power is held by Egeus, who is furious at his daughters disobedience. Egeus controls the basis of the future of his beloved daughter, he has the power to direct the remains of her young life. The complete control of Hermia’s emotion toward love is in the harmful authoritative hands of Egeus. This is yet another example of how the power of authority can direct actions of people which they dictate. Not only was the power distributed through authority, but it was also distributed through the power of transforming erceptions of love.
Only the fairies possess such a abilty of power through their magic. After escaping to the woods, Lysander had gained fatigue and decided to rest. During this rest, Lysander had been approached by Oberon, the King of the Fairies. Love-juice was spilt from a little purple flower on Lysanders eyes from the hands of Oberon which would completely change his perception of love. This perception changing drug was such a powerful love charm, all of Lysanders love for Hermia vanished away, and he had a sudden deep love for Helena.
Upon the awakening of Lysander he immediately started addressing Helena in terms of extravagant love and admiration; telling her she as much excelled Hermia in beauty as a dove does a raven, and that he would run through fire for her sweet sake. Lysanders emotions toward his one true love, Hermia, had evacuated his heart and now was spilled upon Helena. This sudden, irrational passage of love was all caused by the irresponsibility of the fairies and their special powers. The love-juice had circled the perception of love onto Helena, changing from the perception of love that was originally intertwined between Hermia and Lysander.
