What Makes Us Love? What makes us love? This question has been studied for
centuries by philosophers, scientists, and even writers in search of a sensible
answer. Shakespeare, for one, explored many ideas to justify love. In his play,
“A Midsummer’s Night Dream”, he lists various thoughts on what he thinks
causes people to love. Some are overwhelmingly ridiculous, while others make
some sense. One of his far-fetched answers as to how people fall in love was
Cupid. He believed Cupid would shoot his arrows of love into individuals, and
they would magically fall for the next person they saw. “Cupid all armed. A
certain aim he took/At a fair vestal throned by the west,/ and loosed his
love-shaft smartly from his bow (2.1.163-65).” After the shot, the person
wouldn’t know what hit them. He intertwines this thought with the concept that
one falls in love after looking in another’s eyes. After missing a shot, one
of Cupid’s arrows hit a flower, tainting it with his powers to make people
fall in love. When placed in a person’s eyes, they will be infatuated with the
next thing they see. For example, after being placed in his Lysander’s eyes,
his immense love for Hermia grows weak with just one look into Helena’s eyes.
Shakespeare’s thought here is that eyes have all the power over who we fall
for. Do not misunderstand him, though. His usage of this enchanting juice is not
to be taken seriously. He is trying to make a point, and at that, a good one.
Looking into someone’s eyes had a certain power over one’s feelings. You
just get a strong feeling in your heart. It is uncontrollable, and sometimes, it
truly is one of the main reasons we fall in love. However, he contradicts
himself in act one when Helena says, “Love looks not with the eye, but with
the mind (1.1.240).” He now states that the mind is what the person falls in
love with, and not the eyes. It is true, however; you have to love a person’s
thoughts and ideas before you can feel that special passion for them. That is
the key to true love. Although he had extremely different thoughts on the
reasons we fall in love, they all made some sense. By contradicting his
explanations, he, in my opinion, is making a point. He’s pointing out the fact
that he, too, doesn’t really know the answer to the question of what makes us
love. And he knows that no one ever will.