Yi Wei

Dr. Natalie
Eng. 363
Dec. 11, 2014
How does Shakespeare fix the unrequited love?
Unrequited love is when one person loves someone but that person does not
loved back. In A Midsummer Nights Dream, Shakespeare shows unrequited love
between Helena and Demetrius through magic amusement, while in Romeo and
Juliet, He also shows unrequited love between Romeo and Rosaline. However,
Shakespeare fixes these two kinds of similar love in different way and led complete
different endings.
In Romeo and Juliet, most of readers are familiar with requited love between
Romeo and Juliet and sympathetic with their tragedy ending. Therefore, in the
beginning of the play, Romeo does not falling in love with Juliet but Rosaline, the
object of his unrequited love. He spends most of his time imagining his depressing
love life and also this approaching to the love with Rosaline is a theme that recurs
until he meets Juliet in her house.
When Romeo is first introduced, he is introduced as a tragic figure. What
sadness lengthens Romeos hours? /Not having that which, having, makes them
short/In love. Out. Of love?/Out of her favour where I am in love/Alas that love, so
gentle in his view/Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof. (I. i. 156-163) Romeo
describes his love-sickness to Benvolio, his cousin, in the beginning of the play. He
seems not happy at all and this beginning implies strong tragic factors. Also, Romeo
describes love such as without eyes see pathways to his will, Heres much to do
with hate, but more with love, and this love feel I, that feel no love in this. (I. i.

165-177) When Benvolio asks who he loves, Romeo does not give a straightforward
answer, instead he complains that she does not return his love From Loves weak
childish bow she lives uncharmed (I. i. 203). But Benvolio does not laugh at him,
instead he weeps for him. It is sort of foreshadowing for how Romeos love will play
out when it is requited (meet Juliet).
Besides that, when Romeo describes Rosaline to Benvolio, Romeos descriptions
are vague, generalized and referencing Rosalines physical beauty and attractiveness.
She is rich in beauty, only poor/that when she dies, with beauty dies her store (I. i.
208-209), Romeo plays a weak seeker in this unrequited relationship and all he has is
only imagination. Romeos relationship with Rosaline is based on surface love, only
because he thinks Rosaline is beautiful. This unrequited love situation makes Romeo
weak in love with Rosaline. All he knows from Rosaline is only the beauty, but not
real love that they both love each other. The charm of this unrequited love is from that
Romeo never speaks to Rosaline or takes any actions to get his ladys love. And
Rosaline does not love him back.
Between tragedy and comedy, the transition is often but slightly marked. Thus
Romeo and Juliet differs from Shakespeares comedies in its direction of beginning:
Romeo is presented as a melancholic lover throughout the play, which gives it the
stamp of the tragic ending. In Shakespeares time, melancholy was the most
celebrated kind of sadness in the literature of the sixteenth century. Romeo displays
the expected symptoms of this sadness perfectly. (Douglas, 88) When Shakespeare
describes its character: Romeo, as this trend, he has already set up a tragic ending,
because Romeos sadness in the beginning foreshadows this sad ending.
Even though when the play moves on, Benvolio forces Romeo to the Capulets
party hoping that he will find another beauty to fall in love with. Romeo finally meet

Juliet, but she is a Capulet who he cannot love. He says, Under Loves heavy burden
I do sink (I, iv, 22) because his love for her is unhappy and heavy. Romeo does have
the real love with Juliet, not just surface love, and his empty heart has fill with love
accidently. Although the love that Romeo and Juliet share is love at first sight and
Juliets love for Romeo is romantic love back to him. Juliet knows Romeo is a
Montague, a biggest victim opposite with her family, but she loves him back, refuses
her father to marry another man, and inevitably moving this love being tragic again,
as they both die for their loves at the end of the play.
With showing Romeo loves Rosaline firstly, then replace a lover to Romeo
secondly. Juliet appears a heavenly spark that, as it descends to earth, is converted
into the lightning flash, which almost in the same moment sets on fire and consumes
the mortal being on whom it lights. (Bates, 6) When the play can always fix the
accidence itself, it always does not have actions to smooth over a fault. While
Shakespeare fixed the unrequited love, and he actually makes it worse by giving
Romeo love that is not possible. When the play almost can be a hopefully comedy,
Romeo kills Juliets brother, Juliet are forced to marry with another man who she does
not have feeling with, and everything turns to be worse and worse. Juliet plays a
strong female character in this play. When Juliet refuses her fathers attempt to marry
a man who she does not have feeling for, she is challenging the power of her father
that would not have been possible at the Shakespeares time.
Romeo at the first impression is identified as unrequited love a pool soul sat
sighing by a sycamore tree.(Knight, 338) Romeo, when he enters, is ridiculous; a
very conventional melancholic lover. His first long speech is an anthology of the
conventional paradoxes of love poetry. (White, 197) Like my explanation above,
Romeo is playing a word-game with well-known rules: Feather lead, bright smoke,

cold fire, sick health (I. i. 180). His natural wit of Benvolio brings him close to his
senses, and asked Dost thou not laugh? He thinks he does not look like himself.
After he meets Juliet, everything between their loves seems smoothly.
Shakespeare uses his knowledge to draw a happy marriage and love relationship
between Romeo and Juliet to audiences even we think it will have happy endings.
While Shakespeare changes his direction to make something bad happened after he
fixes the unrequited love of Romeo, then he broke up their happiness and leads the
play to a complete tragic way-death. That is why this tragic play is so famous in the
early Shakespeare time.
Shakespeares theme of unrequited love also appears in A Midsummer Nights
Dream; however, the way he fixes it in this play is different than Romeo and Juliet.
Throughout A Midsummer Nights Dream, Shakespeare presents different types of
love, such as stable, unstable, unrequited, and passionate among characters. He
manipulates language in his play to show these different aspects. While in contrast, in
A Midsummer Nights Dream, Shakespeare portrays Helena to us as a character that
nobody loves but we will all be sympathetic to her when she is doing so self-pitying
all the time. We are invited to laugh at her, because within several lovers in the play,
Helena is a best representative of the victim of unrequited love. In A Midsummer
Nights Dream, people who are in love looks like fools, but Helena, who keeps out of
love are another kind of foolish in the play. This is why Shakespeare is so brilliant to
illustrate the comparison of two kinds of loves and fixes the unrequited love in
comedic way.
When a scene that Lysander and Hermia decide to leave, Helena compares her
sadness to their love. She says that Demetrius think Hermia is pretty, so he changes
his love to Hermia. In her mind, love now is decided by eyes but not from the mind.

Your eyes are lodestars, and your tongues sweet air/more tuneable than lark to
shepherds earSickness is catching. O, were favour soMy ear should catch your
voice, my eye your eye/my tongue should catch your tongues sweet melody/were the
world mine, Demetrius being bated/the rest Id give to be you translated. (I, i, 183191) Helena thinks Demetrius loves Hermia deeply and she wants to be another
Hermia. She exchanges both her voice and eyes for Hermias in order to charm
Demetrius. Hopefully Demetrius will move Hermias attractions to her and loves her
back.
At the start of this comedy, four young Athenians set out for the woods in order
to escape the tyranny of life in the city: Hermia, in love with Lysander; Lysander, who
loves Hermia; Demetrius, who also loves Hermia; and Helena, who loves Demetrius.
In this scene, Demetrius has followed Hermia and Lysander into the woods, while
Helena has followed Demetrius. (Shakespeare, 145) Compared to Romeo, Helena
does not fit the role of a melancholic lover, because she is not a physical sickness
lover through the play. She describes herself as a dog at this scene and follows
Demetrius all along: the more he kicks her, the more shell follow him.
But Demetrius tells Helena to go away before she describes herself. Helena says
that Demetrius is responsible for making her follow him, because when he stops
attracting her, she would stop being attracted to him. Helena continues to say
Demetrius cannot love her makes her love him all the more instead of saying stop
loving him. All she wants to do is only to hope Demetrius allow her to keep following
after him. And even for that do I love you the more/ I am your spaniel, and,
Demetrius/ the more you beat me I will fawn on you/ Use me but as your spaniel:
spurn me, strike me/ Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave/ Unworthy as I am, to
follow you/ What worser place can I beg in your love/ and yet a place of high respect

with me/ than to be used as you use your dog (II, i, 202-209) She says it would be a
great honor to her that she can follow him, and no cost to him if he uses her as his
dog. Shakespeare shows unrequited love between Demetrius and Helena at the
beginning acts and scenes. Even though Helena wants to be his dog, but
unfortunately, Demetrius tells Helena that he does not like her or want her to like him.
He is trying to tell Helena that she should stop chasing him. Compared to Romeo,
they are both hopelessly chasing love that were entirely uninterested.
Demetrius is also another character of unrequited love in this play, even though
he is in a dominant place of Helenas world. However, he pursues unrequited love
from Hermia. Dotage, in this play, appears essentially reserved for two kinds of
amorous excess approaching madness: the monomaniacal pursuit of an unrequited
love (thus Helena dotes in idolatry, Demetrius dotes on Hermias eyes, and
Lysander dotes for Helena in the nights comedy of errors). (Kehler, 88) These love
relationships help the love potion more magic and make this play into an imagined
direction.
Not like Romeo or Juliet, Helena is presenting a strong character in this play that
speaks out how she feels and what she wants. Even if Demetriuss harsh words make
us, audiences, feel strongly empathy, and even laugh at her, Helena still does what she
wants to do and takes actions for whom she wants to be with. This unrequited love is
different from Romeo and Rosaline. In Shakespeares time, woman, especially the
upper class woman in the social and cultural expectations, cannot take actions to
pursue love like Helena pursuing Demetrius. That is why this play is so brilliant at the
end.
Continuing that, Shakespeare fixes the love of Helena by the mistakes of a puck
of King Oberon. Robin puts the love potion to the wrong one and makes Demetrius

and Lysander both love Helena. Situations of the play shapely are changed by the two
male characters actions to Helena. This also shows how fantastic Shakespeare uses
his language to make characters full of fun. However, Helena cannot believe them,
one reason is that she has spent a long time to realize why she cannot get the love
from Demetrius, and also she has already taken actions like imitating Hermias
actions to be another Hermia. Another reason could be all these are making jokes to
her, and the mostly, she cannot believe Lysander falls in love with her. Even she
listens to Lysander declaring his love for her, she still thinks he mocks her now and
does not like a gentleman anymore. At Act III, Shakespeare makes Demetrius wakes
up and also does the same thing: declaring his love for Helena. Now it is not only a
joke, Helena cannot handle it and she thinks both men are making a game of mocking
her. Before, she has already been self-pitying and inferior facing to love, but now two
men shift their loves to her. She cannot believe but only says no more mockery.
Languages using is fantastic when Shakespeare describes a speech that Helena
makes to Hermia. She says almost she is the same pretty as Hermia, did everything
together before, best friend and fellow woman with Hermia. Right now, Helena
misunderstands that why Hermia is on their side against her and teases her so badly.
Helena gets hurts because of the boys joke and from her best friend, Hermia.
Everything seems so funny and unrequited love then becomes a comedy: two male
characters love one girl, a girl does not have someone loves her back at the beginning.
What is even more ridiculous is all these love coming from a mistake: the love potion.
Her love at the end is what it was at the beginning, with the obstacles removed
(Kehler, 88) Shakespeare fixes this unrequited love in a different way. Rather than
sadness of death at the end, this play seems having more comic but also includes
tragic factors. Shakespeare is trying to illustrate a woman at that time pursuing love,

but the way of her pursuing seems to be not good enough. What Helena needs to do is
to sincerely deal with her love instead of thinking she is only inferior to prettier
woman, Hermia. This is not the way love is.
Although A Midsummer Nights Dream is identified as a comic play, I think it
also includes the tragic figures. At the end of the play, Theseus disparages
imaginations power to metamorphose reality. (Kehler, 308) This is why I think this
play also includes the tragic figures. The womans social identity does not allow
Helena to be in this place at this time. Pathos using in the play makes me feel move
and sympathetic for Helena, which also makes me understand what Helena wants to
have: true love. While using a title of dream, fantastically, when Demetrius and
Lysander wake up from the love potion, and then everything comes to reality again.
This indirect way of illustrating unrequited love implies meanings behind the play and
cause us forward to investigate the social perspectives at that time period. Male
dominance is the main element found in A Midsummer Nights Dream. Females roles
in this play are in two ways. One is Hermia, who has a lover and under control of
fathers. Another one is Helena, who chases love directly but she does not get love
back.
In conclusion, through these two plays, we can see that Shakespeare fixes
unrequited love in two different ways. In the first one, tragic figures within it make us
feel so bad about the ending, they even cannot see each other the last look. While in
the second one, it has more comic effects. Even though I think it is also tragic when
Shakespeare plays his language by giving love potion and also coming back to
reality at the end.

Reference
Bates, Alfred. The Drama: Its History, Literature and Influence on Civilization.
vol. 14. London: Historical Publishing Company, 1906. Print.
Kehler, Dorothea. A Midsummer Nights Dream: Critical Essays. vol. 1900.
London: Garland Reference Library of the Humanities, 1998. Print.
White, Teresa. Shakespeares Women: A Playscript for Performance and
Analysis. the United States of America: Southern Illinois University, 1986. Print.
Knight, Charles. The Stratford Shakespere: Romeo & Juliet. Timon of Athens.
Hamlet. King Lear. London: Charles Griffin and Company, 1867. Print.
Trevor, Douglas. "Love, Humoralism, and "Soft" Psychoanalysis." Shakespeare
Studies 33. (2005): 87-94. Academic Search Complete. Web. 11 Dec. 2014.