Night in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream
One of the recurring themes throughout Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is the time of day during which the play’s major action takes place: night. This being the case, there are certain words that are directly linked to this theme that appear numerous times throughout the script. Four such words are “moon,” “moonlight,” “moonshine,” and “lunatic.” Each comes from a feminine root that serves to identify the women in the play as prizes to be won and controlled.
It becomes clear when looking up the term “moon” in the Oxford English Dictionary that the word is associated with the feminine. “In poetry,” for instance, “the moon is often personified, always as female…” (1050). It is important to note that the play upsets traditional cultural customs in this regard, for “May was the time of female fertility over which the moon presided, but the play begins with an image of lunar age and sterility, a ‘dowager,’ a ‘cold fruitless moon’” (Paster and Howard, “Popular Festivals…” 93). It is possible that Shakespeare applied such images intentionally to make it clear to his audience that the women in this play are not as free as the May Day festivities might make them out to be. The female fertility that is expressed freely in Shakespeare’s blend of May Day and Midsummer’s Eve is outside of the controlled realm of marriage. Instead of the unrestrained women that both holidays celebrate, however, Shakespeare bookends the play with a woman tamed by a man.
In the first scene, the moon is spoken of by Theseus and Hippolyta as a measurement of time when Theseus announces, “…four happy days bring in / Another moon: but, O, methinks, how slow / This old moon wanes! She linger...
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Works Cited
Brown, Lesley, ed. The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. 5th ed. Oxford: Clarendon, 1993.
""moon," "moonlight," "moonshine," and "lunatic"." Shakespeare Concordance. 23 Feb. 2006 .
Paster, Gail Kern, and Skiles Howard. "Female Attachments and Family Ties." A Midsummer Night's Dream: Texts and Contexts. Ed. Gail Kern Paster, and Skiles Howard. Boston and New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1999. 192-264.
---. "Popular Festivals and Court Celebrations." A Midsummer Night's Dream: Texts and Contexts. Ed. Gail Kern Paster, and Skiles Howard. Boston and New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1999. 89-99.
Shakespeare, William. "A Midsummer Night's Dream." A Midsummer Night's Dream: Texts and Contexts. Ed. Gail Kern Paster, and Skiles Howard. Boston and New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1999. 1-86.
The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989.
Exerting the type of power that is influenced by malicious intentions can cause one to make decisions that are not beneficial to others. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is written within a time period and setting that favors men instead of woman. In other words, men have all the authority to control the events that occur in their own lives as well as the lives of others whom are considered insignificant. The plot displays the catalysts that ignite many characters’ desire for control that is misused by higher status people. Shakespeare’s use of characterization demonstrates how the wanting of control causes the characters to act irrationally through the misuse of power. Shakespeare’s use of setting, plot and characterization causes the ordeals that the characters ultimately face. In turn, the deceitful choices of a few individuals with status impacts whether the lives of lower status people are enhanced.
Shakespeare, William. "Midsummer Night's Dream." The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Web. 02 Nov. 2011. .
Fairies, mortals, magic, love, and hate all intertwine to make A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare a very enchanting tale, that takes the reader on a truly dream-like adventure. The action takes place in Athens, Greece in ancient times, but has the atmosphere of a land of fantasy and illusion which could be anywhere. The mischievousness and the emotions exhibited by characters in the play, along with their attempts to double-cross destiny, not only make the tale entertaining, but also help solidify one of the play’s major themes; that true love and it’s cleverly disguised counterparts can drive beings to do seemingly irrational things.
Throughout A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare uses several powerful metaphors and similes to compare and contrast character motives and ideas, as well as to foreshadow important aspects in the story. Perhaps the most powerful and prominent aspect of Shakespeare’s writing is his excellent use of figurative language. He uses a myriad of symbols, motifs, metaphors, and vivid imagery in A Midsummer Night’s Dream that enrich and illustrate the story. Shakespeare metaphorically uses the moon to tie conflicts together and unite the characters in a common struggle. He uses the moon to a point were it becomes more than just a setting or part of the imagery. It becomes personified metaphorically and is a major influence of desire, deceit and disorder
Similar to other works by Shakespeare, such as The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night’s Dream embellishes the pressures that arise between genders dealing with complicated family and romantic situations. The plot includes a duke who is going to marry a woman he conquered in battle, the king and queen of the fairies embroiled in a fight so fierce that it unbalances the natural world, and a daughter fighting with her father for her right to marry the man she chooses. The girl’s father selects Demetrius to marry his daughter, but she is in love with another man, Lysander, who loves her in return, and her friend Helena is in love Demetrius, but he wants nothing to do with her. Considering the fact that males were dominant during that era, whereas, men chased women, and women remained submissive, Shakespeare dallies with those traditional roles and there are several possible reasons why. Perhaps he made women a stronger force in his plays because he wanted to give his audience a break fr...
Shakespeare, William. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. The Pelican Shakespeare. New York: Penguin Books Inc. 2000.
In conclusion, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare effectively uses the motifs of the seasons, the moon, and dreams to show that love, irrationality, and disobedience directly cause chaos. By calling to mind the seasons in unnatural order, describing the moon behaving strangely, and discussing the dualistic, irrational nature of dreams, Shakespeare effectively evokes a sense of chaos and disorder. Linking each of these motifs to the themes of love, irrationality, and disobedience allows Shakespeare to illustrate the disarray that is bound to result from any romance.
Schanzer, Ernest. "_A Midsummer-Night's Dream." 26-31 in Kenneth Muir, ed. Shakespeare: The Comedies: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1965.
Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. New York: Washington Square Press, 2004.
William Shakespeare’s writings are famous for containing timeless, universal themes. A particular theme that is explored frequently in his writings is the relationship between men and women. A Midsummer Night’s Dream contains a multitude of couplings, which are often attributed to the fairies in the play. Each of these pairings has positive and negative aspects, however, some relationships are more ideal than others. From A Midsummer Night’s Dream the optimal pairings are Lysander and Hermia, Demetrius and Helena, and Oberon and Titania; while the less desirable pairings are Theseus and Hippolyta, Hermia and Demetrius, Lysander and Helena, and Titania and Bottom. Throughout A Midsummer
The role of dreaming in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is to uncover the different relationships between reality and a dream.
Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night's Dream. The Norton Shakespeare: Greenblatt, Stephen, editor. New York: W W Norton & Company, 1997.
Considered to be the greatest playwright to ever have lived, William Shakespeare’s works continue to fascinate and entrance audiences around the world. Imbued with imagery, his comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream is perhaps one of his more fantastic but none the less intricate plays. Presiding over the proceedings, the moon is the uniting feature of the play. With its multi-layered symbolism it is the thread that connects the different characters and weaves the tale together.
Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night's Dream. Comp. Folger Shakespeare Library. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2009. Print.
The title of the play A Midsummer Night's Dream can have many interpretations. I will give you my thoughts on the relationship of the title to the different situations that take place in the play. These interpretations give insight and overall meaning to the thematic nature of Shakespeare's work. Although I am only going to describe three interpretations of the title, there are many other meanings to the title. The first interpretation of the title of the play that came to my mind was the magical dream-like night in the woods, when Robin Goodfellow and Oberon, the king of the fairies, used several kinds of love potions, and messed everything up.