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Difference between tragedy and comedy drama
Literary Analysis of a Midsummer Night Dream
Influences on Shakespeare's works
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No story is complete without an evil villain. No great book, movie, or play goes without an evil character; this includes the famous play write, William Shakespeare. Even though Shakespeare never had any further education, he is one of the greatest writers of all time and wrote many plays. His plays are primarily either comedies, or tragedies. His plays include A Midsummer Night’s Dream which is about people who love the wrong people and a magic love potion confuses everyone even more, but eventually everything gets straightened out and everything works out. Another play would be Hamlet, a story about a brother killing a brother, taking the throne, and then marries his brother’s wife, and the protagonist, Hamlet, happens to be the dead king’s son, and the new king, or his uncle’s stepson. “The king of Denmark has been murdered by his brother, Claudius, who then becomes king and marries the dead king's widow.” (E.D. Hirsch). The last play that will be analyzed will be Othello, a play about a jealous soldier who seeks revenge by ruining a marriage and ends with everyone dead. Shakespeare creates three different villains in each of these plays: Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Claudius in Hamlet, and Iago in Othello.
Primarily, Oberon is the evil character from Shakespeare’s Play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Oberon is the Fairy King who stirs up all the trouble in the play. It starts off when his wife Titania refuses to give him a small child she had found. Oberon want’s the child as a knight, and seeks revenge on his wife. “Oberon is angry and determined to take the child, and teach his wayward wife a lesson.” (Heath, Sue). He sends a Puck Fairy, or Robin Goodfellow, after a flower to create a love potion. Oberon succeeds b...
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...r so he killed him and then took his throne and wife. Lastly, Oberon from A Midsummer Night’s Dream causes a variety of chaos over a small child that his wife refuses to hand over. All of these villains have at least one thing in common; they were all making everyone else suffer for their own gain.
Works Cited
Adams, Michael.. Othello. Barron's, 2004. eLibrary. Web. 27 Jan. 2014.
E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. "Hamlet." The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. 2002. eLibrary. Web. 26 Jan. 2014.
Heath, Sue.. "A Midsummer Night's Dream, Newcastle Theatre Royal." Northern Echo. 16 Nov. 2005: 13. eLibrary. Web. 26 Jan. 2014.
Hunter, Dianne. "Skakespeare's continuity through the daughter." Literature and Psychology 4(2002):38. eLibrary. Web. 26 Jan. 2014.
Pitman, R... "Othello." Video Librarian. 11 Jul. 1996 eLibrary. Web. 27 Jan. 2014.
Shakespeare's villains seem to fall into one of two categories: those who are villainous of heart (inherently and genuinely evil or Machiavellian) and those who are circumstantially turned antagonists. Richard III's carefully plotted plans to usurp the throne contrast heavily against Aaron's (of Titus Andronicus) rambling which contrasts with Aaron's lack of action. The motivations of these two characters are different however. Richard seizes the opportunity to take over the throne by Machiavellian means when presented with the opportunity. Aaron represents the evil presumed of a "godless moor," his character being a symbol as much as his skin colour particularly to an audience familiar with the conquests.
Love, lust and infatuation all beguile the senses of the characters in this dreamy and whimsical work of Shakespeare, and leads them to act in outlandish ways, which throughly amuses the reader. True love does prevail in the end for Hermia and Lysander, and the initial charm of infatuation ends up proving to have happy consequence for Helena and Demetrius as well. Even when at first the reader thinks that, in theory, the effects the potion will wear off and Lysander will once again reject Helena, Oberon places a blessings on all the couples that they should live happily ever after.
Hamlet (The New Folger Library Shakespeare). Simon & Schuster; New Folger Edition, 2003.
Shakespeare introduces to us a character who is evil according to the moral judgement of the moment. He does not respect the social values and norms. For him social taboos such as incest and crimes such as murder cease to be wrong once they become instruments of power. He is Satan incarnated, cunning, greedy and destructive. He has no respect for those who observe social, norms, family ethics and political loyalty.
Whether you hate your King, your Christian rival or a neighboring foe, if you're in a Shakespeare play then you will be punished. In the first act of each play Shakespeare shows a conflict between two groups of people, one is vengeful the other virtuous. After the conflict is introduced, the malignant characters have important parts of their lives taken away and in the end the ultimate penalties of each are inflicted. All of the antagonists are left desolate in the end of the plays by either lost fortunes or their lives. Shakespeare takes good care to give the protagonists of the plays much reward for being on the right side of the spectrum. As the characters hate increases throughout the play they begin to loose what is precious to them, first in small amounts, but in the end, they are stripped of all they love and value.
There are many literary works that contain villains who play an essential role in the development of the work as a whole. However, I believe that the ultimate villain of this kind is Iago in Shakespeare’s play, Othello. Through manipulation and scheming, he beguiles the other characters of the novel.
...le to comedies, when considering A Midsummer's Night Dream, As You Like It, and Measure for Measure, in which the heroes are mostly virtuous ("innocent"), and the villains are devious ("cunning"); however, since the Duke and Iago are both cunning villains, Steinbeck's notion of villains is also appropriate for tragedy. More importantly, though, as previously noted, these “heroes” are directly responsible for their fall, and therefore challenge readers to consider the roles of heroes and villains in tragedy less traditionally; Othello is not cunning, nor is he innocent, and so Steinbeck's parameters exclude him. Thus, a more encompassing generalization would be that tragic heroes are responsible, and "villains are cunning" (Steinbeck).
This is exactly who he turns out to be in the end of the play. “Why should Titania cross her Oberon?” is a short line where it’s easy to see the possession that Oberon believes that he has over Titania. This is another way of seeing his selfishness. In his mind, no matter what the circumstances are, Titania shouldn’t disagree with him. The only reason he believes that he has a power over her is because he is her husband. All throughout their conflict, they hint around that they are very well
Manning, John. "Symbola and Emblemata in Hamlet." New Essays on Hamlet. Ed. Mark Thornton Burnett and John Manning. New York: AMS Press, 1994. 11-18.
Oberon is one of the most important characters in the play A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare and is the answer to the question of why there are so many problems in the play. Not only is Oberon the King of the Fairies but he is the husband of Titania and the master of Puck. Oberon’s character is multifaceted although it is evident that he will do anything for a good laugh. At times, Oberon is extraordinarily nice, generous, and compassionate. He felt sorry for Helena and tried to get Demetrius to fall in love with her. However, On the other hand, Oberon is cruel, jealous, and tyrannical. Resembling his mischievous servant Puck, Oberon finds no problem with playing with other people’s love. He swindled his own wife and laughed at the misfortunes of the four Athenians Helena, Hermia, Lysander, and Demetrius. Despite one’s view of Oberon, it is clear that he is the root of all the problems in the play because he starts a sequence of problems by making the love juice, orders the love juice to be used on Demetrius which in turn causes disarray for all four of the young lovers, and causes disgrace for Titania and creates obstacles for Bottom and the Rude Mechanicals when he uses the love juice on Titania in order to fulfill his own selfish desires.
Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, is established in the play as the jester to the King of Fairies, Oberon. He first appears in Act 2, Scene 1 when he and another fairy discuss the disagreement between Oberon and Titania are having. The fairy gives us some indication of Puck's character as she describes how Puck “frights the maidens of the villagery” and “Misleading the night wanderers” (Act 2.1, line 35). When Titania refuses to give up the boy servant that Oberon wants, he comes up with a plan to steal the child, and enlists Puck's help to do so. Oberon is fully aware of Puck’s desire to have a good time at the expense of others, but trusts him with the task of retrieving the flower to make Titania fall in love with “Lion, Bear, Wolf, or Bull.” (Act 2.1, line 180) The idea here is to convince Titania to hand over the changeling boy while she is infatuated with a beast. Being attracted to mischief, Puck seems excited to be tasked to this adventure, and claims to return “Within forty minutes” (Act 2.1, line 176) so that they can get started on their plan.
In the play, there are several characters wanting vengeance like that of Hamlet. Throughout the play, Hamlet, Laertes, and Fortinbras all had a tragic death of a family member which caused their decision for revenge. Consequentially, these revenges caused the demise of two characters and the rise of power of another. The retaliation shown by the Prince of Denmark, as well as Laertes led to the downfall of their government. In the play, Hamlet seeks revenge on his uncle Claudius.
Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night's Dream. The Norton Shakespeare: Greenblatt, Stephen, editor. New York: W W Norton & Company, 1997.
In Shakespeare's Macbeth, Macbeth is guilty of committing treason against his king and country. He is purely and deliberately driven by dark desire, ambition, and murderous thoughts. As the play continues, it gets easier and easier for Macbeth to commit his heinous crimes. He not only kills the king, but continues to kill various people in order to secure his wrongfully obtained position. Macbeth also has many interactions with witches, who at the time are the definition of evil. One could say that Macbeth and depravity are two sides of the same coin. Macbeth is far more evil than any other character in the play, including Lady Macbeth.
Corum, Richard. Understanding Hamlet: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1998. Print.