Lunatic, Lover, and the Poet Essay

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The quick shifts of the young lovers' giddy affections thus take place in the 'real world' of Athens, just as they do under the power of Puck's magic. Love in fairyland is not that different from the real world, it only looks different on stage and screen. Even when there are misunderstandings, these misunderstandings are often merely illustrations of a larger truth, as when Hermia wrongly accuse Helena of taking Lysander from her -- she correctly accuses Helena of betrayal, just the wrong kind of betrayal. And Hermia unwittingly, temporarily won Demetrius from Helena in the real world, just as Helena wins the affection of both men in the forest, because of Puck's magic. The ways in which the never-never land of the woods parallel 'real' life in Athens point out how dreams and desire, while they may seem separated from real life, are also heightened reflections of real-world concerns. The true nature of affection and the ability of it to be swayed and to devolve into male-female power struggles are merely heightened by Puck's mistake. "Am not I Hermia? are not you Lysander?/I am as fair now as I was erewhile./Since night you loved me; yet since night you left me" says Hermia to her bewitched Lysander, echoing Helena's despairing words about Demetrius in the real world, as Hermia marvels that Lysander no longer loves her (III.2; I.1)

While Lysander is made to love Helena by magic, Hermia's unwitting 'real' magic in Athens won Demetrius. But Demetrius ends the play enchanted to love Helena.

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The four lovers wake feeling that they have found truth, with only the dim awareness of Helena that Demetrius is a "jewel" that is her own and "not her own" (IV.1). The forest reveals the true nature of human and fairy love -- it is fleeting, although the fairies understand this, and morals do not. "Such image-magic makes its victims believe that they gained enlightenment, maturing to reason, exactly when succumbing to its influence; while its lasting impact is the confusion of the senses, or the power to distinguish and discriminate" (Szakolczai 2007, p.1)

The forest pits Helena and Hermia in a fight that finally, starkly settles the conflict between the two of them regarding men: "But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes," exclaims Hermia to Helena. The two men nearly come to murderous blows over Helena. Only fairy intervention saves them, but the resolution of marriage seems hollow, given the uncomfortable truths it covers over about the inconstancy of their future husbands, and the incompatibility of friendship with love. In the end, Theseus retains his compelled marriage, Titania is forced to give up her changeling child and patriarchy is restored. But the arbitrary nature of affection and laws pertaining to marriage make these triumphs less than satisfactory for a truly critical viewer. The words of Oberon "the lunatic, lover, and the poet," linking all three themes of the play -- madness, love, and self-dramatization, ring as true today as when they were written (5.1)......

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