He shows that even though they have gone through so much, like running away and dealing with the potion in the woods, that love conquers all. As Hermia and Lysander are in the woods, Puck, the fairy, accidentally put a potion in Lysander’s eyes that made him fall in love with Helena. Due to this, Hermia and Helena got in a fight and Hermia had lost the one she loved to her friend. Once the potion was fixed, Hermia and Lysander were found by Theseus, Egeus, and Hippolyta. Egeus “[begs] the law” to not let Hermia and Lysander be allowed to marry, but Theseus disagrees (4.1.154). Theseus says he “will overbear [Egeus’s] will” and allow the two lovers to marry, along with Helena and Demetrius (4.1.178). Shakespeare celebrates love by allowing Hermia and Lysander to have a happy ending and get married, alongside the two other couples. Helena and Demetrius are the couple that is mocked the most in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In the start of the play, Demetrius was intended to marry Hermia, which made Helena jealous of Hermia for having two men in love with her at the same time. When Lysander and Hermia ran away into the woods, Helena and Demetrius followed them. Demetrius had been made to fall in love with Helena by the fairies, but at the same time so was Lysander. Helena …show more content…
Can you not hate me, as I know you do,
But you must join in souls to mock me too? (3.2.145-150)
Helena believes that Demetrius and Lysander are mocking her because they were both previously in love with Hermia. She thinks that they are making fun of how she is lonely and not as good as Hermia, so they joined in to tease her. When Hermia finds out that Demetrius and Lysander are in love with Helena, she calls Helena a “thief of love” and assumes that Helena stole her “loves heart from him” (3.2.283,284). Shakespeare mocks the “love at first sight” concept by doing this, because the potion that was put into the two men’s eyes made them fall in love with the first thing they saw, which happened to be Helena. Along with the two couples, Theseus and Hippolyta and Lysander and Hermia, Helena and Demetrius are celebrated for their love by Shakespeare. Although Shakespeare mocked them for love at first sight, the two characters continue to love each other after their events in the woods. When Demetrius is found by Egeus with Helena, he states that: . . . –my love to Hermia, Melted as the snow, seems to me now As the remembrance of an idle gaud Which my childhood I did dote