Balance: The Athenian Lovers

As I discussed in a previous post, Shakespearean comedies most often revolve around a conflict that needs to be resolved, usually manifest in some sort of disorder needing to come to order. A Midsummer Night's Dream is no exception, with several examples of this disorder being displayed in the different characters. One of these is the story of the Athenian lovers.

A short synopsis is this: there are four Athenian lovers—two men and two women. Perfect, right? Two couples! But the play does not start this way. Rather, Lysander, one of the men, loves Hermia—as does the other man, Demetrius. Helena, meanwhile, is in love with Demetrius but is unable to garner his attention. Throughout the play, the attraction of these individuals moves back and forth from one to another, resulting in a disorderly chaos of relationships. They are out of balance. There should be the obvious two pairs, but there isn't. I chose to explore this visually with two charts. (Click the links to view them larger. I plan to add additional charts later to explore this visual interpretation further.)

Chart 1

In the first chart, I show the allegiances of the lovers, Demetrius and Lysander, with respect to objects of their affection, the women (or, the loved). Their allegiances zig-zag back and forth for the first three acts of the play (typical of Shakespeare), finally being resolved at the end of the third act.

Chart 2

The second chart displays the affections being received by the two women, Hermia and Helena, with respect to their lovers. When their bar is wide, they are receiving the affection of both men; when it is thin, they are receiving the love of one man. Again, this goes back and forth until the end of the third act.

There are several things I found interesting in this. First, it is interesting to be able to visualize an abstract version of Shakespeare's plot structure. As is common with his plays, everything is resolved by the end of the third act. The final two acts are simply putting into place the resolution and furthering the story. I thought it interesting how well that showed in my visualizations. It may be an obvious thing, but I didn't think to expect it. It was a pleasant surprise when I realized just how much it showed.

From these charts, I feel that the concept of balance and unbalance is pretty obvious. I particularly enjoy the fact that the charts seem to quite literally illustrate the line from Lysander: "the course of true love never did run smooth." The comedy of silly confusions that this play is is quite evident from the way that the lovers so dramatically switch between partners. It is also interesting to look at the charts and remember the cause of each change. Most every time, it was due to an interference by the fairy world (the only exception is Demetrius's sudden change of focus from Helena to Hermia, which technically occurs before the start of the play). Very little changes about the characters themselves. I can't help but think that this play is much more of a play for fun and entertainment than it is for any sort of moral message. Perhaps it suggests that love itself is often out of the lover's control (which can seem quite true) or that love is a fickle endeavor.

The play also includes one of the standard comedic motifs from Shakespeare: love being made difficult by parents, or the older generation. What I found interesting in this case was that this problem was overcome by coincidence: the fairies enchanted them and everything worked out. If only life really did work this way. I guess that is why it is a dream.