Examples Of Duality In A Midsummer Night's Dream

In Shakespeare’s masterpiece, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, he shows the audience his understanding of duality and how he blurs the two together. One example of duality that is very prominent in this play involves the relationships between the fairies and the mortals. Throughout the play, the audience can see the intervention of the fairies in the mortals’ lives, from Puck’s trickery on Bottom to the fairies meddling ways on the Athenians’ love lives, it is illustrated that the fairies in the play maintain a sense of omnipotence while the mortals lack control over their own lives.

When the playgoers are first introduced to the mortals, they are under the impression that they control their own lives. Initially, when the four lovers venture out

into the woods, they are manipulated by the fairies and lose the right to love who they wish to love. Lysander and Demetrius become the victims of the fairies’ carelessness. However, as the play comes to an end, Lysander is released from the spell that was put on him earlier in the play but Demetrius is stuck, forever to love someone who he doesn’t.
The fairies also take away the mortals ability to see their reality around them, often mistaking it for a dream.

When Puck turns Bottom back to normal he is unable to recall what happened to him as his reality. As he wakes up, he seems to believe that it was all simply a dream: “Stolen/hence and left me asleep! I have had a most rare/vision. I have had a dream past the wit of man to say/what dream it was…Methought I was–there/is no man can tell what…I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this/dream. It shall be called “Bottom’s Dream because/it hath no bottom”(4.1.213-226). With this, the audience can see that the fairies have warped Bottom’s sense of reality, for he can no longer recollect his actions of when he was with

Titania.
In addition, the fairies also play a large part in the play.

It was mentioned before that the fairies had a sense of omnipotence to themselves, and they never fail to display this when in a scene. In another instance, Oberon tells puck to “anoint his eyes/but do it when the next thing he espies/may be the lady” (2.2.269-271). Oberon is clearly exercising his power over Puck in this scene, and shows the audience his ability to wield magic for his own personal use. Oberon does not specify whom he talking about, showing an element of negligence in this scene. The audience can also witness as the rankings of the fairies go down, their power over them remains unyielding. When the audience first meets the character Robin Goodfellow, also know as Puck, they are introduced to a fairy that has tremendous power but uses it for all the wrong reasons. A fairy says, “…You are the shrewd and knavish sprite/Called Robin Goodfellow. Are not you he/That frights the maidens of the villagery” (2.1.34-36). Puck, uses his powers for his amusement, rather than the betterment of the world around him. Overall, the fairies believe in “influencing” the mortals because they are helping them make decisions that the mortals are unable to make without conflict, but it becomes more complicated when the fairies are using their powers for their amusement

instead.
Finally, when the two groups are put together, the audience can see the dynamics between the two and how they differ and clash with each other. When Oberon sends Puck to fix the mistake that is known as Demetrius and Lysander, he takes a rather interesting approach: “Like to Lysander sometime frame thy tongue;/Then stir Demetrius up with bitter wrong./And from each other look thou lead them thus,/Till o’er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep/ With leaden legs and batty wing doth creep./Then crush this herb into Lysander’s eye”(3.2.381-387). Puck then takes on the voices of both men and make them chase each other until they are tired and fall asleep from exhaustion. As the audience can see, we can see the fairies again manipulating the mortals to help them, but also for their amusement as well. Oberon now sees the error in which he has made, and tries to fix it. That does not stop him from choosing the more unorthodox approach. Another example is when the fairies and mortals are in the same scene. It is usually portrayed as the fairies watching over the mortals. This gives the intimation that the fairies have more power over the mortals. In the play, it shows how well and how disastrous these two groups living together can be, but in the end, it seems as if they rely on one another.
In conclusion, the audience can see the struggle of the fairies and mortals coexisting. The audience sees that as fairies exploit the mortals’ lack of power over their own lives while also trying to benefit the mortals as well. Meanwhile, the fairies are also simply making the choices that the mortals could not when they were not under the influence of the fairies. Even though the mortals lack a sense of self, the fairies do not, and in turn, makes up for them.