Relationships and Their Effect on Male Characters - Essay Example

Relationships and their Effect on Male Characters A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of the oldest known plays by renowned playwright, William Shakespeare. The play is original in its own ways, and the major reason is the fact that it can combine an array of themes in order to bring out a particular major concept that the society required to understand. This is different from many other plays that sought to show this because they did so with only one theme along the entire play. However, the play was imperative, and this is also from the fact that it incorporated the concept of comedy. Comparing this with modern day works is well done with the 2012 movie Safety not guaranteed. The movie was a blockbuster that managed to capture the attention of many people from its ability to portray various themes while still maintaining the major concept that is actually the creation of humor through comedy. The two of these works are similar in many ways, but it is imperative to grasp the concept that one of the common themes is relationships and going through the various ways that women make relationships complicated and can lead men to carrying out unforeseen acts is important. Relationships do not necessarily need to be romantic but can also be regarding members of the same family or even friends. For example, in the play, Hermia makes the life of his father rather complicated. As this is how she is portrayed to refuse, any efforts that his father makes to get her a husband. Egeus, her father, had tried his best and went searching for a husband for the daughter since he had noticed that she had got of age. However, the girl did not approve of the man that his father had brought as he said that he was not ideal for her. According to the Athenian law, it was the responsibility of the father to ensure that he chose an eligible man for her daughter to get married. However, when the daughter does not follow the instructions provided by the father she puts the father in a tough position. Hermia puts the father in a tough position and the reason is that the father does not seem like a respectable member of the commodity from then on (Shakespeare 104). People get to perceive him as a weak member of the society and often said that if he did not have the ability to control his own daughter, how then he expects the respect that he wanted. This major part shows how girls and women make the lives of men around them rather difficult. Another part of the play that shows this is the scene where the king of the fairies has a disagreement with his wife. A major reason for their disagreement is the fact that the wife was persistent about attending the wedding of Theseus of Athens. According to Oberon, the king, he had planned to go back home as soon as he was through with the activities that he had around the forest that they had earlier visited. However, the wife becomes stubborn stating that she does not plan to leave the forest until she had attended and got off the wedding. The stubbornness of this female is another reason that has created a lift between her and her husband, this is explained from the fact that she has not given up her Indian Changeling to her husband as the knight. According to the husband and even from a general point of view, this seems like disobedience to the man who has always received respect as the head of the family. It would be presumed she would have already given up the Changeling to her husband from the beginning. However, this is not the case, and this is coming from her attitude. Oberon was the king, and this lift is one that has led to him not having the respect that he deserved from his people. This act is one that has led to the king going further to even intending to lace his wife’s food with some type of love concussion. This concussion is to punish his wife for the disrespect that she has showed him (Shakespeare 134). According to his plans, the wife is supposed to take a portion and consequently fall in love with some kind of animal in the forest and the consequent of this is have him remaining strong and still a reputable member of the society despite the problems that his wife has brought him. Another situation that effectively shows the manner in which women take men that they relate with through much trouble is in the love triangle that involves Lysander being the person that is deeply in love with Hermia. The other person the triangle is Demetrius. It is appropriate to note that Hermia is a very attractive woman that caught the attention of many young men in the area. She, however, only loves one man and this was Lysander. Despite the fact that Lysander knows that he was the one that the girl loves, he is often in confusion and this is from the way she treats other men that attempt to approach her. She is very rude, and this makes him fear getting into long term relations with her because he is not sure whether along way she will stop loving him and end up leaving him. This issue disturbs Lysander. However, he decides to portray all his love to her and decided on eloping with her. Demetrius is the one that suffered most when trying to understand the issue of the love triangle. The reason is that he was deeply in love with a girl; however, despite the efforts to stop her from being with Lysander, she loves him a lot and does not appreciate the amount of love that Demetrius bears for her. This has the consequence of having Demetrius suffering very much emotionally for he was prepared to carry out any act to ensure that he manages to marry her. This shows the amount of suffering that men in the area go through because of the relations that they have with women. Safety not Guaranteed is one other feature that portrays the manner in which women complicate the relations that they have with men around them. According to the story and from the very beginning, there is the revelation of a college girl that is deeply disillusioned and lives with her widower father. The situation in itself shows that the family was not perfect as it was and further revelation where the young woman stresses her father almost every day telling him of how she wanted to understand better ways to understand newspapers and thus required cash frequently. For a widower, the father finds this rather challenging given that he knows his daughter as disillusioned and thus thinks that she will either misuse the money or spend it on other non-magazine related issues. After being accepted by her people to go for a certain educative road trip that will lead to her following up on a certain intriguing story that one of the magazine people had received as that of a man that is willing to take anyone with him through time in a time machine. During the road trip, the girl is rather chatty. This is from the manner in which she is interested in knowing almost everything about the man that they are heading to meet. Her two mates, Jeff and Arnau, are rather calm as compared to her and many are the times that they find her conversations while travelling boring. However, in order not to seem rude, the two just stare this is noted at points where the girl asks some questions that seem rhetorical to them. The disturbance was torture to the two men trying extremely hard to concentrate on the issue despite they would have periodical talks. It is important for them to understand what it is that they are heading to face and thus know the questions that they will ask. While at that location, Jeff gets to understand that his former fling from the days that they were kids is still living in the area. Jeff and the girl, Liz, immediately reconnect, and they spend ample fun times together. There are periods that Jeff almost forgets the mission that has taken him to that location. Jeff gets to the point that he regrets ever losing that girl. Jeff has a very good time in a location that he asks her to go with him to Seattle. However, Liz is skeptical about it despite the fact that she says that she had also had fun reconnecting with Jeff. When Jeff asked her why she does not want to go with her to Seattle, she boldly states that she fears that she would be just another fling for Jeff. This is a point that leaves Jeff heartbroken and is seen even taking time to think about the issue as he tries to get over it. This scene shows the manner in which women make the relationship that they have with men complicated. If Liz had given Jeff another chance, she would have probably settled with him and lived an appropriate life in Seattle. However, she made things complicated and led Jeff through a severe phase of devastation when she refused to go with him to Seattle. In order to get over the frustration that he was going through he convinced his friend to Arnau that they go look for single girls in the town. There is also a point towards the end of the film that there is the revelation of the real reason Kenneth, the man behind the time machine, “created” the machine. While still on the trip, the boss calls the three journalists and notifies them that the man behind the machine though that he had killed his close friend Bridget. It is than that they head to talk to Kenneth and then he reveals that out of some kind of jealousy, he had during earlier years crashed through the house of Bridget’s former boyfriend at the time. This jealousy was because of the manner in which women do not define their relations at times making men think that they actually would end up marrying them but then turn around and do not fulfill these hopes. From that time, he has always felt guilty for he thought that he had killed her in the process. This act had made him act in a manner that had made people conclude that he was paranoid and that he had gone mad. After the journalists notify him that the girl is still alive, he states that his time machine had actually worked. The fact that he thought the girl was dead was his major reason for building the time machine had actually worked. This is another point that shows that constant thinking of the girl has actually made the person become psychotic and started acting in a manner that was funny. Clear enough from the explanations offered about the two works is that women have a big role to play in the various negative actions that men take not only in the contemporary world regardless of the type of the relationship that the characters involved have. The number of relationships covered varies from father-daughter relationships that are very critical for both the parties involved. The other group involved is that of pure friends where one of them has romantic feelings towards the other but cannot get to express them in an articulate manner because the other person is involved with someone else. The other tough relationship is that between people who have an already established commitment where the actions of one of them keep the other in an uncomfortable position and consequently they end up carrying out malicious activities. It is important to understand the various ways through which this issue can get resolved for the greater benefit of both genders. Work Cited Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Illustrated by Arthur Rackham). Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2012. Print. Read More