What is the true definition of love? Many people have different interpretations of this small but powerful word. However, in William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream, the definition becomes rather twisted. Pure, real love exists among the characters, but is all the love at the end of this play genuine? Love exists in a midsummer night's dream before Oberon and Puck put magic on the others, which then causes some of true love to instantly disappear. The feeling of love in the poem is both real and fake. At the beginning of Shakespeare's play, a man named Egeus wants his daughter Hermia to marry Demetrius. However, Hermia and another man, Lysander, are completely and hopelessly in love. Despite what his daughter wants, he wants her to marry Demetrius. If she does not marry Demetrius, her father then offers her two alternative options. These choices include never marrying another man and being religious or facing death. At this point in the play, the love between Hermia and Lysander is very real, but if she were to marry Demetrius, her love for him would ultimately be nonexistent. Later in the play, a character of Helena was introduced. She was a young woman from Athens who was in love with Demetrius. Demetrius and Helena were once lovers, but when Demetrius met his close friend Hermia, he fell in love with her and left Helena. People who fall in love tend to love the person unconditionally, suggesting that the love between Demetrius and Helena was always one-sided. Since Helena is in love with Demetrius and her feelings were probably lust rather than love. In which lust eventually disappears into darkness. True love exists for Helena Towa... middle of paper ...... ally marrying a man who actually didn't love her at all and perhaps never had any love for her. Equally arbitrary, Demetrius was forever under the spell of a love that trapped him with one woman for the rest of his life. The love between the two is extremely illusory. Upon closer inspection, you'll quickly see that the happy ending isn't so happy after all. In Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, true love as well as false love are boldly defined. The love of Lysander and Hermia as well as Oberon and Titania towards each other is legitimate and honest. But the fictional love in the play comes down to a single character. Demetrius is the only character whose love is a lie that only exists thanks to magic potions. Demetrius' love for Helena will forever be nothing more than a fraudulent feeling which leads to the conclusion that a forged love exists in Shakespeare's play..