Essay on Human Nature in Hamlet and a Midsummer Night's Dream

Words: 1305
Pages: 6

“It is the nature of people to love, then destroy, then love again that which they value the most.” –Unknown. Countless authors have tried to display love as human nature, but no author does this better than the famous playwright, William Shakespeare. In both Hamlet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare exhibits how love can control a person. To understand how love controls a person, one must understand that human nature is the sum of qualities and traits shared by all humans. All humans have exhibit love in one way or another, which explains how human nature relates to the controlling aspect of love. In Hamlet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, conflicts between loyalty to family and friends, lack of trustworthiness towards others, …show more content…
While Hermia does not lose her love for Helena, her feelings do become hurt. Hermia has feelings of love towards Helena. While the feelings of love never go away, they do control the way Hermia acts towards Helena because the love is hurt and the trustworthiness is lost. This issue of loss of trustworthiness and hurt feelings of love controls how Hermia and Helena act and plays a big role in how the play ends. However, the issues between Hermia and Helena become resolved and everyone has happiness in the end. Just as trustworthiness plays a role in the controlling nature of love in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, trustworthiness also plays a role in the controlling nature of love in Hamlet. In Hamlet, Hamlet only shows trust towards his friend, Horatio, the only person who has not gone behind his back. Hamlet’s “friends”, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have lost Hamlet’s trust by going behind his back and spying on him, orders from the king and queen. Hamlet becomes aware of the spying. Throughout the play, many people turn their back on Hamlet, and Hamlet loses trust for many of his so-called friends. So, after reading Hamlet, one can imply that Hamlet only has trust for Horatio and only has love for Horatio. Horatio is Hamlet’s only true friends as he is the one who has not gone behind Hamlet’s back and always been there for him. Horatio is a true best friend to Hamlet. Love and trustworthiness controls how Hamlet acts towards