A Midsummer Night's Dream

One of the main themes, and in my opinion, the main motive for the characters in A Midsummer Night’s dream, is love. All the events in this book are a consequence of love; Helena betrays Hermia because she is in love with Demetrius, Hermia and Lysander have to leave their homes because their love isn’t accepted and Oberon deceives Titania because he cannot stand she gives her love and attention to someone else. Unfortunately, love can also generate jealousy. Just look at Helena who is more than happy to betray her own friend Hermia, even though Hermia cannot help that her father wants her to marry Demetrius. So instead of being a good friend and help Hermia, she decides to betray her (this may sound mean, but if she hadn’t been so jealous and had helped Hermia get away she wouldn’t have betrayed her friend and could also have won back Demetrius’ love, a win-win situation in my opinion, although then you wouldn’t have a story anymore, but still..).
This, however, also shows how your feelings can deceive and influence your perception. Another example of this is that Titania “falls in love with” an ass. You could even interpret this as a symbol for some men, because in my opinion, Demetrius is a real ass the way he treats Helena. And the perfect example for this is of course Helena who is still in love with Demetrius after all that he has done to her.
Another theme in this play is magic. Not only the “regular” kind of magic that the fairies use, but in a way love is magic too. After all, what makes people fall in love? Scientists say it has something to do with the way you smell, but why do some relations work and others don’t? There is no “real” explanation for love, it is a supernatural (magical) power.