A Midsummer Night's Dream Analysis

Lenny Cohen
Early Shakespeare
Dr. Zysk
2-18-14

Shakespeare’s Dream

Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream offers itself as a metaphor which both reflects and

critiques the theatre. The word “dream” is used as a catalyst for action and a tool to pose

questions about the nature of reality versus the stage. Shakespeare achieves this metaphorical

critique in part through the deviance of Oberon and Puck, who become the plays second “sub-

playwrights” by using potion and the power of dreams to create an additional narrative within the

play. The play rely’s heavily on contrast to enforce this metaphorical comparison. Helena is tall

while Hermia is short, the fairies are graceful and magical while the mechanicals are clumsy and

bumbling. The play is constantly juxtaposing two or more plots, comparing elements that are

both mystical and ordinary, often times not making much sense on the surface and requiring

further interpretation. This style is deliberate, a technique Shakespeare uses wherein he writes his

play in the vein of a dream, only adding to the fantastical nature of its reading and performance.

The word “dream” evolves throughout the play and the narrative is careful to evolve alongside it,

always with the intent to critique the stage and the reality (or lack of reality) in which the

audience inhabits.

Beginning with Puck’s final epilogue to the audience “If we shadows have offended/

Think but this/ and all is mended/ That you have but slumbered here/ While these visions did

appear.” (Epilogue) Shakespeare has set forth a disclaimer asking the audience to take no

offense on his musings of dreams and reality. Shakespeare alludes to the actors on the stage as

“shadows” which portray a vers...

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...like Bottom can see the limitless potential of both

mediums.

To speak as Shakespeare speaks regarding A Midsummer Night’s Dream as dream and

Oberon as the manipulator or conspirator of dreams within the play should not deminish the

plays significance as a work of literary drama. Instead, I put forward that Shakespeare intends for

the play to be viewed not as a separate and distinct entity from the natural world but simply as a

component of it. This is to say that while a play is comprised of a beginning, middle and end, it

transcends time and space in the same sense as a dream or a memory. This idea relates to the

Renaissance theory of the open system where a flow occurs both in and out. A Midsummer

Night’s Dream dares to live outside the confines of its pages just as dreams live outside the

confines of our minds.