does not agree to her father's terms, and when the father departs, the lovers launch into a duet on the impediments standing in the way of love--differences in age, social conditions, and coercion by those in authority. It is when the two plunge into the woods that fantasy becomes an important element along with the changed scene. They are followed by two others, a second couple who insist on being unhappy by always falling in love with the wrong person:
We soon realize that Shakespeare is more interested in this systematically self-defeating type of passion than in the initial theme of "true love," something unconquerable by definition and always in need of villainous enemies if it is to provide any semblance of dramatic plot (Girard 15-16).
Girard further finds that the midsummer night as it develops is a night of i
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