Shakespeares A Midsummer Night’s Dream Theme Analysis Essay

Love causes the line between reality and fantasy to blur making characters question if it is all just a dream. This situation is clearly depicted in Shakespeare's a Midsummer Night’s Dream when Robin places the four lovers asleep and they wake up wondering if they have experienced a twisted fantasy. With vivid dreams that often feel real it is impossible to determine if one is awake or actually dreaming. Shakespeare's character Robin Goodfellow stretches this even further by playing countless tricks on mortals making them question the reality they live in, “That you have but slumbered here, while these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream.” (V.1.171) Robin believes he has just pulled off his biggest scheme by convincing the mortal lovers that their entire quarrel never happened. He realizes the true cleverness of his scheme by putting the lovers back to sleep and he knows they will question if they were ever truly awake. With no one there to witness these events, there is no proof that they occurred. Robin and the fairies are the main source of confusion regarding reality as they have their own goals leading mortals to easily fall prey as pawns to their games. Bottom the Weaver for example is given an ass’s head thanks to Oberon and Robin. In addition, the potion the fairy queen receives causes her to fall in love with Bottom. However they put him asleep and in a matter of minutes he goes from a fairy king to wondering if it was all just a dream, stating “Man is but an ass if he go about expound this dream. Methought I was-there is no man can tell what.” (IV.1.135) Bottom is hopelessly confused as the fairies play a nasty trick on him, however you can see that Bottom does re...

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...d. An even more well known example is the Matrix, where characters enter into an almost alternative world where to them it represents reality. This confusion is reversed from that of a Midsummer Night’s Dream because Matrix characters believe that their fantasies are real, while Shakespeare's characters believe that there their reality is a dream. This blurred line between reality and fantasy is a good thing, especially in a Midsummer Night’s Dream when characters block out their awful quarrel and disregard it as a dream so they can move on and be happy. However today, it can be more of a headache as it merely makes us stop and question reality for a few moments before the thought slips to the back of our minds. Four hundred years later, we still see evidence of Shakespeare's themes in our everyday lives and we will alway question if it is all but a dream.