Nature of friendship

Nature of Friendship
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Nature of Friendship
Friendship emerges when two or more people come closer to each other, and they are ready to share their problems as well as enjoy together during pleasure. Friendship can start in a simple way but develop into strong ties where the involving parties cannot do without each other. Friendship at times can be ironical in that; an individual might find having an affair with a person they never imagined that they could groove together. The paper shall address the nature of friendship that is reflected in Oedipus cycle, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as well as in the Cry, the Beloved Country. The paper shall summarize the findings from the three sources highlighting the characters and the way love is expressed among the different characters.
From Oedipus Cycle, it is shown how Oedipus undertakes a wrong step to marry his mother, Jocasta. Oedipus does not know his real father and unfortunately, he sleeps with his mother. Laios, a father to Oedipus, wanted to kill his son, but ironically he is the one killed during the fight with Oedipus at the crossroad. Oedipus did not know that the man he killed was his real father thus he could not be termed to be guilty. “Fear? What should a man fear? It’s all chance; chance rules our lives. Not a man on earth can see a day ahead, groping through the dark. Better to live at random” (Datan, 1988). Oedipus, who was a King, faces the wrath of the gods of the land. Oedipus has fallen with his mother to an extent of marrying her since the father was the king.

The relationship that exist in this context raises a lot of issues including the guilt of Oedipus, the wrath that is to befall him, the fighting of the unknown man as well as the mistake made by Jocasta not revealing the real father to his son. The land of Thebes experiences a curse forcing Oedipus to go and ask Apollo through prayers to heal the land. The prediction by Delphi had earlier on indicated that Oedipus will at one time kill his parent and share a bed with his mother. The prophecy comes to pass when Oedipus slept with his mother and married her. There is a friendship that develops between the people of Thebes and Oedipus when he saves the people from Sphinx (Datan, 1988). They treasure him and make him the king of the land.
Ideally, friendship comes from a varied scenario that can be conflicting. The family to Oedipus had left him to go out of the country but later on; he gets back to his mother, and they make a family where he sires four children with Jocasta. Friendship needs not necessarily to start from a known point, but it can also begin from mysterious point to an advanced stage.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream highlights the theme of love through a comedy done in a forest setup. The play shows how love can turn people into blindness, stupid as well as desperate. Love is believed to impose threats to the friendship where men and women can find themselves in conflict just as shown between Oberon and Titania in the play. Love creates slavery among the parties involved as it makes people unable to control themselves. “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and, therefore, is winged Cupid painted blind” (Mcentee, Galati & Shakespeare, 1994). When individual involve themselves in love, they do whatever it takes to experience happiness. In the play, the King and the Queen are blessed, and the end of the play shows a happy ending ignoring the effects of love to men and women just to confirm the beauty of love. The play concentrates on the mortal and fairy world where a relationship between men and women is highlighted. The relationship between Theseus and Hippolyta becomes stable only after they fought and Theseus won. Women are seen to be submissive to men for love just as seen in the case of Oberon, who control his wife.
The issue of male superiority continues to highlight in the play when Egeusa tries to control the marriage of his daughter. Modern days allow men to remain the head of their household just as it used to be in the past. In precise, love can destroy the friendship between people of the same sex. Helena is disloyal to Hermia, who is her friend with an intention of winning in love.
Friendship is hard to explain how situations take place. The lovers in the forest use the word “dream” to symbolize how their experience was hard to understand. The occurrences happen without their control and conscience. Duke Theseus comes at the end of the play to condemn the illusion and imagination that the lovers undergo while in the forest in the name of love. From the argument of Duke, dream helps people to reason to the humankind to think beyond limits. Love is a powerful tool for determining the strength and validity of people’s friendship. The disloyal shown by Helena in the name of winning love shows that a relationship between two individuals can easily be altered by love.
In the play Cry, the Beloved Country Mr. Stephen Kumalo, a priest, goes to Johannesburg to look for his son Absalom. It is funny for the old man to be caring for the son at the age when the son needs to take care of the old man. It is unfortunate that Absolom is already dead, and Kumalo feels very sad on receiving the news (McManaway & Howard-Hill, 1972). He relies on the other believers to help him pray for God to strengthen him. James Jarvis finds it impossible to reunite with Arthur, his son. As opposed to Kumalo, who cares about injustices in South Africa, Jarvis concentrates on his family life and farming. The play relates to the Case of the prodigal son in the Bible where forgiveness is highlighted. The phrase “I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they are turned to loving, they will find that we are turned to hating,” (McManaway & Howard-Hill, 1972) indicates that the desire for love when is available. Kumalo informs Jarvis that it is Absalom that killed Arthur, but Jarvis forgives him and takes the matter with ease. The friendship that emerges from a problem becomes so stiff that the derived benefits stay for long.
From the three plays, it is evident that nature of friendship differs from one situation to another. For instance, love is seen in many cases creating and destroying the friendship. In Oedipus Cycle, the strong ties that grow between Oedipus and the mother lead to the death of Oedipus’ father. Oedipus helps the society to get rid of the Sphinx spell in Thebes enabling him to granted the crown of kingship. The love shown in the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream shows how love can separate friends due to self-interest (McManaway & Howard-Hill, 1972). The friendship that emerges from a hardship situation grows stronger than the normal friendship that starts when people meet and become friends naturally. Maintaining as strong relationship calls for courage and endurance just as shown by Oedipus, who visits the shrines and the priest now and then to get the society healed from the Sphinx spell.
References
Datan, N. (1988). The Oedipus Cycle: Developmental Mythology, Greek Tragedy, and the Sociology of Knowledge. The International Journal Of Aging And Human Development, 27(1), 1-10. http://dx.doi.org/10.2190/xap9-uqp1-rnmw-v7r8
Mcentee, A., Galati, F., & Shakespeare, W. (1994). Cry, the Beloved Country. Theatre Journal, 46(2), 259. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3208456
McManaway, J., & Howard-Hill, T. (1972). Oxford Shakespeare Concordances. The Merchant of Venice. As You Like It. All’s Well That Ends Well. The Winter’s Tale. Twelfth Night. The Taming of the Shrew. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Love’s Labour’s Lost. Much Ado About Nothing. King John. I Henry VI. II Henry VI. Renaissance Quarterly, 25(3), 366. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2859031