Themes in A Midsummer Night's Dream

Shakespeare's one of the best themes to deal with in most of his plays is love. In this comic play too, he deals with the nature of love which he ranks in many categories. The love of Hippolyta and Theseus stand for mature love, the love between Hermia and Lysander and Helena and Demetrius represent the youthful love, the love affair of Oberon and Titania refers to the renewed love.

Before him, other poets and writers praise the true love as ideal love, but here he depicts the inconsistency in love. The male characters, especially Lysander and Demetrius profess their love sometime to Helena and sometime to Hermia. Men are shown to be shallow in the relationship in this play. 

Seeing and being blind

In this comic masterpiece of Shakespeare, we are compelled to think how we see things in love. Helena, in the play, states that 'love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind.' According to Shakespeare, when people are in love, they are lost and they cannot see things correctly. They are blind in love, which means love is actually blind. The lovers just see what they want to see around them. They do not see the reality and becomes totally blind. Both eyes and mind are diverted by the love.

Waking and dreaming

Waking and dreaming condition is the key turning points in the play. All the lovers in the play fall asleep and when they wake up, they find themselves completely in different situation. Before the sleep there was no confusion in terms of love affairs, but after their sleep, because of the mischievous deed of Puck, the confusion and chaos arise among the couples. When they wake up from their final sleep, they have a feeling of dreaming. In the dream, everything is properly managed. Puck also at the end of the play says that the whole play is a dream and the audiences are the sleeping dreamers. The moon stands for the dream and the daylight refers to the waking.

Reality versus illusion

Shakespeare's another main theme is reality versus illusion. The reality of life is shown in the illusionary theater and the audiences perceive the illusion as the truth. Shakespeare believes that man is gullible in nature so he makes fun of human being in this play. He enchants the audiences in the fairy world of dream and makes them believe in the unbelievable. But at last, he lets them know that the audiences are in a dream, in an illusion. The theater, which is a world of shadow and illusion can make a life of its own. Here Shakespeare challenges our belief of reality and illusion.

Change and transformation

The theme of changing and transforming is the next important theme of this comic play. The characters in the play are seen changing their minds and images so frequently that the plot of the play becomes complex. The woods is the place where the change is possible. With the love juice of Puck, both Demetrius and Lysander change their mind on the issue of love making.  Love has transformed the people in the play. The love, especially after the use of Puck’s love juice, turns around and causes several confusion and even chaos. Because of this changing and transforming Helena gets her love back, Hermia is allowed to marry with whom she loves and the love of Titania and Oberon is renewed.