The Prevalence of Heterosexuality: Exploring Queerness in A Midsummer Night’s Dream Puja Harikumar College

Many critics have agreed that the resolutions to the myriad of conflicts in Shakespeare’s play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream are all unified in a manner that reinforces the central theme of the play. However, when it comes to what exactly critics believe this theme is, the answer varies greatly. Some believe that the play’s ending is meant to signify the triumph of true love over societal expectations, while others believe it represents how imagination eventually must give way to rationality. However, what many literary scholars fail to take into account is the underlying elements of homoeroticism that can be interpreted as the root of many of the conflicts. These include Demitrius and Egeus using Hermia’s hand in marriage to commemorate their attraction to each other, Titania’s insistence that her changeling servant remain by her side as a reminder of her love for his mother, and Helena and Hermia’s past relationships with each other. This essay will proceed to examine these elements before explaining how Shakespeare gets his characters to overcome their same-sex attractions in favor of a conventionally heterosexual ending in order to reflect the primary theme of the play; the necessity of suppressing homoerotic desires (along...