William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream

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In William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummers Night’s Dream,” the moon plays a very significant role throughout the entire play. It is a symbol that is linked to many things that take place over the course of they play, and seems to help bring about the comedic behavior that fills the majority of it. The moon also elicits the notion of dreaming which plays a very significant role in the play also. If anyone knows anything about our solar system, then the references to moons may be caught early on. Three of the characters names; Oberon, Titania, and Puck all happen to be the names of three of the planet Uranus’ moons (NASA). Although the naming of these three moons did come a long while after William Shakespeare wrote the famous play, it is still important to mention because it gives wind of how important of a factor the moon will be throughout the play itself. The moon is first mentioned at the opening of the play in act one line three, by the character Theseus. Theseus begins the play by mentioning his upcoming marriage to the queen of the Amazons Hippolyta, and how the old moon is taking entirely too long to leave so that the new one can rise and he can finally have his chance to take her hand in marriage and also have the opportunity to sleep with her. In the case of Theseus bringing up the moon, we are shown that it is first used to show the passage of time in the play. The mention of dreaming quickly follows suit in the coming lines spoken by Hippolyta where she mentions that the two of them “will quickly dream away the time (1.1.9).” The moon is used to symbolize many other things in this play as well. For instance it is closely related to the subject of desire in my opinion. Many of the actions of the characters take place under... ... middle of paper ... ...ke for instance in act four, scene one, when Demetrius is talking with the other three characters after waking up in the woods. He says, “Are you sure/that we are awake? It seems to me/That yet we sleep, we dream.” His accusations are quickly followed by the other three young characters agreeing with him that they too feel as if everything has been a dream. Along with the younger characters accusations, many other mystical dream-like situations occur. You have the case where Nick Bottom is given the head of an ass by Puck during one of his mischievous bouts, which we all know cannot happen except in the state of someone dreaming. Another thing that would be dream-like would be when Puck uses the love juice from ‘Cupid’s flower’ to make the several love mishaps happen that take place thanks to the orders of Oberon and even sometimes mixing those very same orders up.

William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream
765 Words | 2 Pages
Hermia , Lysander , Helena and Demetrius represent young love in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream . They are potrayed as foolish and fickle , acting like children and requiring a parental figure to guide them . The parental figures are Hermia’s father , Egeus , and figuratively Theseus , the mortal ruler , and Oberon , the mystical ruler.
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Love: The Great Equalizer in Midsummer Night’s Dream
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The first scene of A Midsummer Night’s Dream introduces a tangled web of lovers. Hermia presents herself for judgement as she refuses to marry Lysander, the man of whom her father approves, as she is infatuated instead with Demetrius. Meanwhile her friend Helena is besotted by Demetrius, but he loves Hermia. The scene plays out like a soap opera with dramatic relationships galore, but Shakespeare establishes greater depth with the help of allusions. The most significant references in this scene appear when Hermia and Lysander speak privately for the first time. In their brief conversation, Hermia alludes to Cupid, Venus, and Dido. The first two are gods of love, and Dido is a queen who burned herself on a pyre after being abandoned by her lover. Shakespeare uses each of these mentions of mythology to make the point that the affair between Hermia and Lysander is no passing fancy. However, when Helena enters and converses with the star-crossed lovers she makes no mention of mythology as she discusses her unrequited love for Demetrius and resulting jealousy of Hermia. The absence of allusions in Helena’s speech accentuates the divide between herself and her friend. Barbara A. Mowat speaks eloquently on this concept in the Folger Library edition introduction. As Ms. M...
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Hermia Weaknesses
698 Words | 2 Pages
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, penned by the acclaimed author William Shakespeare, demonstrates erratic relationships in the form of a romantic comedy. The play takes place in ancient Athens where Theseus, duke of Athens, and his fiancé, Hippolyta, prepare for their grand wedding. During the preparations, Theseus must settle a dispute between a man named Eugeus and his daughter, Hermia. Hermia desires to marry a charming young man by the name of Lysander, however, her father forces her to wed Demetrius. Throughout the story, Hermia and many other women, battle with their love affairs. Through these chaotic love affairs, the predominant female characters show their strengths as well as their weaknesses through various events in the play. Two
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Analysis Of Midsummer's Night Dream
1541 Words | 4 Pages
Shakespeare’s literature exemplifies creativeness and powerful word use to create bodies of work with strong attributes that grab the reader’s attention. Midsummer’s night dream is an example of some of Shakespeare’s best work. The thesis of this essay is Hermia’s father, Esues wants his daughter to marry someone that he approves of and more importantly he wants someone for her that is respected by the rest of society to admire. This play has love, drama and characters that follow their hearts. Hermia is told she is not allowed to love or marry Lysander by her father. Her father Esues wants her to marry Demetrius. The setting of the play is taken in Athens. Athens is a place of order and royalty and a place where people are supposed to marry
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Love, Chaos, and Disorder in Midsummer Night’s Dream
1215 Words | 3 Pages
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.
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A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, and Measure for Measure
2231 Words | 5 Pages
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a festive comedy. The play takes place in June and this is a bewitched time. In the spring the custom is to celebrate the return of fertility to the earth. During this time the young people spend the night in the woods to celebrate. Shakespeare uses the greenworld pattern in this play. The play begins in the city, moves out to the country and then back to the city. Being in the country makes things better because there is tranquility, freedom and people can become uncivilized versus when they are in the city and have to follow customs and laws and behave rationally.
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Personality of Bottom and Puck
655 Words | 2 Pages
The comedic play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, written by William Shakespeare around 1594, is the story of events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and his wife, Hippolyta. There are the adventures of four Athenian lovers, Lysander, Demetrius, Helena, and Hermia. There are also group of six workmen who are also amateur actors trying to get picked to perform on Theseus’s wedding day. Most of the story takes place in an forest outside of Athens. Nick Bottom is a weaver who is chosen to play Pyramus in the production for the royal couple’s wedding. Puck, also known as Robin Goodfellow, is Oberon, the king of the fairies and the forest’s, fairy helper. Out of all the characters two of the more fascinating ones were Bottom and Puck.
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A Midsummer Night's Dream - Battle of the Sexes
576 Words | 2 Pages
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...
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William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream
1280 Words | 3 Pages
The two locations of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream are essential to the development of the plot; although their presentation relies wholly on the characters we meet there, their adventures and their descriptions of these places. The main Plot of A Midsummer Nights Dream is a complex jumble that involves two sets of couples (Hermia and Lysander, and Helena and Demetrius) whose romantic cross-purposes are complicated By their entrance into the play's fairyland woods where the King and Queen of the Fairies (Oberon and Titania) reside and the folk character of Puck or Robin Good fellow( http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9000181/A-Midsummer-Nights-Dream>.. The incidents that take in the play and the film are really the key factor in the story, the play writer orders them in such a way that threes a hint of foreshadowing, yet he doesn't divulge enough in the incidents to let you know ...
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The Irresistible Need for Control in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night’s Dream
1468 Words | 3 Pages
The time period and setting in which this play is written causes the characters to crave control that affects the fate of others. Shakespeare writes this play during the time period of the mid-1500s to the early 1600s. The hierarchy of power during this time favors men more than women. Similarly, women are strictly valued as property rather than equal counterparts to men. England’s societal pyramid during this time period is evident in A Midsummer’s Night Dream as Egeus threatens to end his daughter’s life unless she complies with his wishes to marry a man she does not love:
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William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream
1677 Words | 4 Pages
Shakespeare wrote his acclaimed comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream more than a thousand years after Apuleius’ Roman novel, The Golden Ass. Although separated by thousands of years and different in terms of plot and setting, these works share the common theme of a confused and vulnerable man finding direction by relying on a supernatural female. One of A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s many subplots is the story of Bottom, a comical figure determined to be taken seriously in his production of a Pyramus and Thisbe. As Bottom becomes caught up in a quarrel between the king and queen of the fairies, the commanders of the enchanted forest where Bottom and his players practice, the “shrewd and knavish sprite” Puck transforms his head into an ass’ s and leads him to be enthralled in a one night stand with the queen, Titania. (2.1.33) Apuleius’s protagonist Lucius endures a similar transformation, after his mistress’s slave girl accidentally bewitches him into a donkey, leaving him even without the ability to speak. Although Lucius’ transformation lasts longer and is more severe, he and Bottom both undergo similar experiences resulting from their animal forms. Lucius’ suffering ultimately leads him to salvation through devotion the cult of Isis, and Bottom’s affair with Titania grants him clarity and a glimpse into similar divine beauty. Ultimately, both asinine characters are saved through their surrender to the goddesses.
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Disguise In A Midsummer Night's Dream
564 Words | 2 Pages
In the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, several events occur that cause chaos and confusion among the people. The writer of the play, Shakespeare draws the reader to focus on the small but important details in the story, to understand what is happening, and why. I believe Shakespeare focuses on these characters mainly and their stories; the young Athenian lovers, Titania & Oberon, and Nick Bottom. These are the characters that are greatly affected by the magic of Cupid’s arrow and Oberon’s mischievous works. The theme magic is what really begins each characters story and what carries it, but what also causes all of the problems. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare emphasizes the theme magic to allow the reader to view how the power of magic affects each character differently.
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Mythology In Shakespeare And A Midsummer Night's Dream
1721 Words | 4 Pages
The main source of mythological inspiration in A Midsummer Night’s Dream derives from Ovid’s A Metamorphosis (Lamb). A Metamorphosis is a long epic that details the history of the creation of the world involving gods. It contains stories of mythological characters that undergo a sort of transformation, or metamorphosis, in each story that, in the end, “ties them all together” (“Ancient Rome-Ovid-Metamorphosis”). Considering the general plot line of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, one can see that Shakespeare utilizes the same idea of including something that brings all of the different storylines together in the end. For example, in the beginning, Demetrius and Lysander both like Hermia, and Helena does not have any suitors. However, because of the conflict between Oberon and Titania over the little indian boy, Helena resultantly obtains a suitor (Demetrius) from Puck’s antics, thus showing the seemingly different storylines coming together after the transformation from Puck’s lotus flower love potion, which parallels A Metamorphosis. Shakespeare also borrowed the name “Titania” for the fairy queen from A Metamorphosis, which, again, shows the parallel between the two
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The Moon In A Midsummer Night's Dream Analysis
1208 Words | 3 Pages
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.
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Critical Analysis of A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare
2944 Words | 6 Pages
William Shakespeare, born in 1594, is one of the greatest writers in literature. He dies in 1616 after completing many sonnets and plays. One of which is "A Midsummer Night’s Dream." They say that this play is the most purely romantic of Shakespeare’s comedies. The themes of the play are dreams and reality, love and magic. This extraordinary play is a play-with-in-a-play, which master writers only write successfully. Shakespeare proves here to be a master writer. Critics find it a task to explain the intricateness of the play, audiences find it very pleasing to read and watch. "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" is a comedy combining elements of love, fairies, magic, and dreams. This play is a comedy about five couples who suffer through love’s strange games and the evil behind the devious tricks. This play begins as Theseus, the Duke, is preparing to marry Hippolyta. He woos her with his sword. Hermia is in love with Lysander. Egeus, Hermia’s father, forbids the relationship with Lysander and orders her to marry Demetrius. Demetrius loves Hermia, but she does not love him. On the other hand, Helena is in love with Demetrius. To settle the confusion, Theseus decides that Hermia must marry Demetrius or become a nun. In retaliation to her father’s command, Hermia and Lysander run away together. Amidst all the problems in the human world, Titania and Oberon, the fairy queen and king, continually argue about their various relationships that they have taken part in. (Scott 336) Titania leaves Oberon as a result of the arguments. Oberon is hurt and wants revenge on Titania. So he tells Puck, Oberon’s servant, to put a magic flower juice on her eyelids while she is sleeping. This potion causes the victim to desperately in love with the first creature that they see. Oberon’s plan is carried out, but the potion is also placed on Lysander’s eyes. Lysander awakes to see Helena, who is aimlessly walking through the woods, and instantly falls in love with her. She thinks that he is making fun of her being in love with Demetrius, so she leaves and Lysander follows. This leaves Hermia to wake up alone. Puck now has journeyed to the area where several actors are rehearsing. He uses his magic to turn one of them into a donkey, in hopes that Titania will awake to see it.
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William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream