Andrea Sirhall Prof van Elk English 463 5 March 2006 Identity and Romantic Love in Shakespeare s A Midsummer Night s Dream Early modern London was a place where one s identity was consistently defined by external factors; sumptuous laws attempted to make it so that class was apparent based on apparel, and class itself was a relative factor determined by the financial and familial status of those immediately above and below an individual. Women were constantly defined by fathers, brothers and husbands, and according to Louis Montrose, men themselves also privately identified themselves through the women in their lives (Montrose 36). Indeed, spousal relationships seemed to be the single most defining relationship in a person s life. In the Bedford Companion to Shakespeare, Russ McDonald points out that Protestant church tacitly embraced the idea of mutuality and even equality between spouses and asserted that a true, good marriage would lead to conjugal oneness (McDonald 261). Throughout A Midsummer Night s Dream, Shakespeare toys with the ideas of romantic love and identity and how the two become intertwined. Indeed, in a world where marriage is the most defining thing in one s life, the idea of romantic love (and the choice it implies) could be seen as a desperate attempt to take control of one s identity and choose through whom one will be defined for the rest of his/her life. However, by sending the four lovers into the woods and having their romantic choices put into the hands of others, it would seem that Shakespeare is pointing out that identity is neither internal nor immediately external. It is instead handed down
by beings outside the sphere of human understanding, that is, either by a blind mythic god or by an intrusive faerie king. In his essay Shaping Fantasies : Figurations of Gender and Power in Elizabethan Culture, Louis Montrose asserts that A Midsummer Nights Dream is a look at the cultural anxieties produced in an androcentric culture when a woman is the monarch (Montrose 36). According to Montrose, it is a disturbing reality for such a culture to have to acknowledge that men are dependent upon mothers and nurses, for their birth and nurture; upon mistresses and wives, for the validation of their manhood. While it is certainly true that men in early modern England were privately dependent upon women for such identification, Montrose ignores entirely the idea that women were in the same way indeed, in more public ways dependent upon men to validate their identities. The play begins with a problem between father and daughter. In true Elizabethan form, this domestic matter is seen as an affair of state and is brought before the duke, who advises willful Hermia that her father should be as a god-- one that composed [her] beauties, yea, and one to whom [she is] but a form in wax by him imprinted (1.1.47-50). This passage does two things: firstly, it sets up the idea of identity as an external construction and secondly touches on the idea that a god something outside and above human experience should be the one who forms the wax of the individual. If Theseus is right, Hermia s identity is purely the creation of her father. In fact, without his intervention, she is nothing at all but shapeless wax. However, it is clear here that the god mentioned (Hermia s father) is not omniscient enough to truly bend Hermia to his will for we see a few lines later that she and Lysander decide to do exactly as they wish regardless of the Athenian law. Following immediately upon the heels of Hermia s confrontation with her father and the duke, we are introduced to fair Helena, who makes her first appearance in the play brooding on
her beauty: Through Athens I am thought as fair as she. But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so (1.1.227-228). In Helena s mind, her beauty or lack thereof is completely dependent upon the man she loves seeing it. He does not, and therefore Helena spends the next several scenes of the play bemoaning her ugliness and her unworthiness. In this case, Helena s self-identification is dependent upon the man of her choosing seeing her qualities. The fact that a father, a friend, or a man to whom her soul consents not to give sovereignty (1.1.82) might tell her that she is fair is of no consequence; if Demetrius does not agree, then the qualities do not exist. In addition to reaffirming the necessity of a man through whom to identify herself, Helena s comment also echos Hermia s early assertion that personal choice plays an important role in who that selfdetermining man will be. Indeed, Hermia s choice seems to be all that separates Lysander and Demetrius, who are in every way fairly ranked with one another (1.1.101). In early modern England, marriage seemed to be the single most identifying relationship a person could have. This idea is supported by Pauline doctrine espoused by the Church of England. According to McDonald, the church stressed the necessity of conjugal oneness and the idea of companionate marriage (McDonald 261). From this point of view, marriage was the epitome of identifying oneself through another; according to the church, future spouses were to come from similar backgrounds in the first place, and then come together to create one flesh (McDonald 261). This is reflected in Lysander s speech to Hermia in the second scene of Act Two, where he swears to Hermia that, even before marriage, they are two bosoms interchained with an oath so then two bosoms and a single troth (2.2.55-56). If two people create one spiritual body, it follows that the line separating the two identities is erased and the two suddenly have one joint identity. Although Hermia and Lysander are separate individuals, their love alone (without a consecrated union) creates for them one troth of existence. An individual is
necessarily defined by his/her spouse because that spouse is you. Luckily for Lysander and Hermia, the two have had the benefit of choice with regards to their future spouse. This is a key aspect in explaining the inexplicable nature of the relationships between the four lovers (Montrose 39). Montrose calls Hermia s ability to deny Demetrius (or any man) access to her body a fragile power that is usurped by Theseus, but he doesn t point out that this power is also an element of the three other lovers (Montrose 38). All four at some point deny access to one of the other three. Throughout the play, it is easiest to distinguish between the four lovers by examining who is granting access to whom at any given point; for the audience, the choice helps us define the characters just as it helps each character define him/herself. This choice at once accepts the external nature of identity and expresses a wish for control in determining that identity. Hermia knows she will be defined by her spouse and therefore wishes to be defined by Lysander instead of Demetrius, who at the beginning of the play doesn t want to be defined by Helena. However, the lovers trek into the forest and the land of immortals calls the nature of this choice into question, for although it is an important choice, it seems as though it is not made by the mortal characters of this play. Upon the audience s introduction to the faerie world and the forest, Oberon tells a story about Cupid and an incident where his arrow missed its intended target: the blind god was between the cold moon and the earth (2.1.156-157) that is, working on a level between cold chastity and earthly, baser urges. The arrow is checked by the moon and the fiery shaft... fell upon a little western flower (2.1.161-166). The maiden Cupid is aiming for is given no choice as to whether or not she will fall in love, and it is not she who avoids the arrow but the moon itself which seems to step in to deflect it. Already the reader is given a rich world of immortal entities intervening in the lives of humans; the moon is actively protecting the virtue of the
maiden. From the passage it is unclear whether the moon steps in and deflects the arrow and lets it fall wherever it will, or if the moon herself has a specific flower in mind for Cupid s shaft. Helena and Hermia are two maidens who seem to be between Amazonian chastity and unrestrained desire; they are prime western flowers to be pricked by Cupid s arrows. After being pricked, the two are also purple with love s wound (2.1.167): Hermia is pursued by someone she does not love, and Helena is rejected by the man she does. In this way, their love for their respective beaux is explained. This apparent choice is no personal choice at all but the work of a blind god. Initially, this is also an explanation for Lysander s love to Hermia. In the case of Helena and Demetrius (and also Lysander), where the faerie king intervenes, it is still the work of outside, otherworldly influence which inspire love. The flower s potion causes its recipient to pursue the first living thing it sees with the soul of love (2.1.182). In this scenario, the entire act of falling in love must be orchestrated by Oberon and Puck for even when the propensity to love is imparted to the men, they still have to be sure that the men will see the proper lady upon awaking. In this realm, the idea of personal choice is completely swept away and the love of every party can be explained by external, non-human forces: Hermia s and Helena s doting on their respective beaux is the result of cupid s arrows. Demetrius love for Helena is the result of faerie intervention and actually happens against his will. Lysander s love is originally the work of Cupid and restored seemingly out of respect for the god. Romantic love and the identity it represents is not the result of choice but of beings outside the human sphere. In this way, it would seem that the play on identity within A Midsummer Night s Dream winds up with the conclusion that identity is the result of intervention that cannot be seen or otherwise detected by human beings. Shakespeare sets up a world of choice and romantic love
and then turns it on its head by introducing Cupid, Oberon and Puck. Interestingly, the reader is even given an excuse for the apparent marital unhappiness between Oberon and Titania: even if love is set up by some divine being, it is not a perfect being. Cupid clearly misses at times, as he did with the imperial vot ress (2.1.163), and the faeries themselves are proved extremely fallible. Although the patriarchy is properly restored at the end of the play, the autonomous nature of the human being is not; after having intervened in the lives of the lovers, the faeries come in once more to bless the marriage beds of the couples. In fact, the retrospective way in which the Cupid story is presented as well as the telling of Titania and Oberon s history with Theseus and Hippolyta calls into question whether or not the human characters of the play had any autonomy of action or identity in the first place.
Works Cited McDonald, Russ. The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare. 2 nd ed. New York: Bedford, 2001. Montrose, Louis Adrian. Shaping Fantasies : Figurations of Gender and Power in Elizabethan Culture. Representing the English Renaissance. Spring 1983: 31-56. Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night s Dream. Ed. David Bevington. New York: Pearson, 2004.