Midsummer Nights Dream And Lunatics Essay Example

Despite knowing that she should keep Hermia's secret, Helena cannot help but tell Demetrius in order to make him notice her. Although Helena's actions may jeopardize her friendship with Hermia, love often makes people willing to risk everything. Adding to the chaos and madness in the play, Puck mistakenly confuses Lysander with Demetrius and accidentally sprinkles Lysander's eyes with the potion.Lysander wakes up and sees Helena. Due to the potion, he immediately falls in love with her. This creates a catastrophe when Hermia wakes up and realizes that Lysander only has eyes for Helena. A fight ensues between the two best friends when Helena exclaims, "O spite! O hell! I see you are all bent To set against me for your merriment. If you were civil and knew courtesy, You would not do me thus much injury." (III:II 148-51). Puck also puts the potion on Titania's eyes, causing her to act like a lovesick lunatic. When she wakes up and sees Bottom with an ass head, she immediately falls in love with him. Despite Bottom's appearance, the potion affects her judgment and she is still attracted to him. Otherwise, Titania would not be attracted to Bottom at all. Titania describes Bottom as a very handsome man and invites him to sit down, saying, "Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed, While I thy amiable cheeks do coy, And stick muskroses in thy sleek smooth head, And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy." (IV:I 1-4) The madness of this kind of love is expressed in the line "reason and love keep little company nowadays" from Act III, Scene I (145-46).Love can be irrational

and overpower logic, as demonstrated by Theseus in A Midsummer Night's Dream. This further supports the notion that lovers are often seen as insane, as expressed by the phrase "lovers are lunatics." These lovers and madmen possess such passionate minds and thoughts.