Question

Prove with the theme of the play/extract that the deeper human emotion which profoundly interested Shakespeare was jealousy.

Answer 1

Jealousy is an emotion that comes in the form of sadness, anger, or resentment caused by the desire for something that someone else has. A person‘s actions are then driven by it. Jealousy is one of the major themes of the play 'A Midsummer Night‘s Dream‘. Between Helena, Demetrius, Hermia, Lysander as well as the fairies, jealousy is a very dominant emotion. The two main characters that Shakespeare uses to display this emotion are, Oberon and Helena. At the beginning of the play, in Act I, Helena is seen to be jealous of Hermia, because Demetrius has left her and now loves her friend, Hermia. Helena‘s desire for Demetrius‘ love turns her into a desperate woman with low self-esteem. She follows Demetrius into the woods, begging him to take her back and pleading with him even when he is cruel to her. Her jealousy caused by her desire for Demetrius‘ love culminates into her jealousy of Hermia‘s beauty. This makes Helena resent Hermia and accuse her of conspiring with Lysander and Demetrius to mock her. Even Hermia feels jealous of Helena when both, Lysander and Demetrius profess their love for Helena. She makes her jealousy apparent through these lines - Now I perceive that she hath made compare / Between our statures; she hath urged her height. Lysander‘s rejection of Hermia lowered her self-esteem and she became angry with Helena to the point where she threatened to physically harm Helena. Thus, the jealousy of Helena towards Hermia due to Demetrius and that of Hermia towards Helena due to Lysander caused fury and conflict between the four characters. The King of the fairies, Oberon‘s jealousy is the driving force of the play. Oberon was jealous of Titania because she possessed the Indian boy that he desired. Moreover, he was also jealous of the Indian boy because Titania showered all her attention to the boy giving rise to Oberon‘s envy. Titania‘s refusal to give up the boy fuelled his jealousy to the point where he decided to teach her a lesson. The entire drama that unfolds in the woods is a result of Oberon‘s jealousy towards Titania. Thus, it can be seen that jealousy affects, in a direct or indirect manner, all the major characters of the play. As Shakespeare illustrates jealousy as the most powerful and unpredictable of emotions parallelly through Helena, Hermia, and Oberon, it can be said that the deeper human emotion that profoundly interested Shakespeare was jealousy.