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A Midsummer Night's Dream


Lysander and Hermia emphasize that the true love should be subjective and free way. .
             In contrast with Hermia, Helena thinks that love makes a person be blind. Although she is as beautiful as Hermia, she is distressed by the fact that her beloved Demetrius loves Hermia and not her. Demetrius loves Helena before doting Hermia. At present, he cannot see her beauty and has only Hermia in his mind. What makes the target of Demetrius's love changed? Helena replies that the reason of Demetrius's treachery is "Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind" (773). In this sentence, "the mind" looks like erotic desire because Helena figures "love " as "blind Cupid". In other words, she considers that love depends not on an objective assessment of appearance but rather on an individual perception of the instinct. And more, Helena thinks that she dotes on Demetrius in the same way that he dotes on Hermia. She believes that love has the power to transform "base and vile" qualities into "form and dignity"(773). That is, even ugliness and bad behavior can seem attractive to someone in love, such as Titania's passion for the ass-headed Bottom. This attraction is as good as erotic desire.
             The intervention of fairies.
             By the appearance of Oberon and Titania, the means of true love that Helena suggests is not limited in the heterosexuality between a man and a woman, but increases its value as the supernatural power which makes a person persist devotion toward anything in the world. In this play, the ability that makes one person love another person or living creature is in the potion of the magical flower. The love potion is made from the juice of the magical flower that was struck with one of Cupid's misfired arrows by piercing a hundred thousand hearts; it is used by the fairies to wreak romantic havoc throughout Acts II, III, and IV. The love potion thus becomes a symbol of the unreasoning, fickle, erratic, and undeniably powerful nature of love, which can lead to inexplicable and bizarre behavior and cannot be resisted.


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