“A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart, and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.” This quote personifies friendship. A true friend would be honest and kind, and would listen without judgement. A friend puts others first and gives without asking to receive. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream the characters seem to know nothing about friendship.
I’ll start with Helena. She sells Hermia out because she’s so in love with Demetrius, so she put him before her friends. Hermia even tells Helena that Demetrius’s folly is no fault of hers, but Helena blames her for being beautiful and rich. She blames Hermia for things that Demetrius did. She said, “he hailed down oaths that he was only mine; and when this hail some heat from Hermia felt, so he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt. I will go tell him of fair Hermia’s flight.” While Helena has some trouble in the friendship area, I feel like Hermia did her best.
Another failed friendship was with the actors. When Nick Bottom was turned into a “monster” by Puck the others (Peter Quince, Snug the Joiner, Francis Flute, Tom Snout, and Robin Starveling) ran right off without Bottom. He thinks they are playing a trick on him because he says, “this is a knavery of them to make me afeared”. They didn’t try to help or figure out what happened and they left him in the woods. But, I’ll cut them some slack since they aren’t the brightest characters.
As bad as Helena, Hermia, and the actors did, it was the couples that failed the worst. Theseus upset Hippolyta with his decision about Hermia and instead of apologizing or actually trying to fix anything he just brags about his dogs when they go hunting. Hippolyta ignores him when she could have worked out a compromise. Another couple having trouble was Oberon and Titania.
I have a feeling essentially poisoning your wife to get what you want is probably not the smartest idea. Oberon didn’t respect Titania. She told him about her servant that died giving birth to a boy and she says, “for her sake do I rear up her boy, and for her sake I will not part with him.” I think that makes perfect sense, but Oberon keeps pushing and finally says, “give me that boy and I will go with thee.”
Through all the relationships and friendships in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, they all made mistakes with their relationships, but they redeeming quality was the ability to forgive. Even though the messed up, once Helena and Hermia got their boyfriends straightened out, they were friends again, Bottom forgave the actors, Hippolyta forgave Theseus, and Titania and Oberon forgave each other. That’s really why I like this play because in the end it was like a fairytale, so I feel it deserves a true fairytale ending like this: And they all live happily ever after.