The concept of contrast plays an important role throughout Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Shakespeare provides many examples of contrast signifying it as a motif. He groups the ideas of contrast together into those of some of the most important roles in the play. Helena is portrayed as tall and Hermia is short. Titania is a beautiful fairy who falls in love with Bottom, who is portrayed as graceless. Moreover, the main sets of characters even have differences. Fairies are graceful and magical creatures, yet tradesmen are clumsy and mortal. Additionally, the tradesmen are always overjoyed while the lovers are always serious with their emotions. Contrast layers throughout the whole play, as examples are shown in nearly every scene. Contrast becomes a constant, important motif to Shakespeare’s playwrite. To emphasize, in Act III, the reader is presented with the play’s most extraordinary contrast, the relationship between Titania and Bottom. “What wakes me from my flow’ry bed?” (III.i.131). Titania is awoken by the so-called melodic singing of Bottom. In the present scene, both characters are under some particular sort of spell. Titania’s eyes were anointed with the nectar of the love flower, thus causing her to fall in love with the next living thing she encounters. In the meantime, Puck pulled a prank on Bottom, turning his head into that of an ass. Both characters of the play are interpreted as complete opposites. Titania, characterized as the beautiful, graceful fairy queen; Bottom is portrayed as overdramatic, self centered, and as of now, not keen on the eyes. However, the love nectar never fails and seems to bring the two into a state of lust. The contrast between the two is overwhelming. An important scene in the pl... ... middle of paper ... ...d lust. All they see is blurred people around them, the spell they are under makes them so heavily in love they are not willing to focus on their surroundings. Nothing will get in the way of their determination for love. The blurred beast-looking object resembles Bottom through Titania’s eyes. As an elegant creature (fairy), Titania would not infatuate herself with such a creature as Bottom and his ass head. Instead, the fact that she is drowned out of reality with the love potion cancels out Titania’s desire for physical attraction. The characters become too infatuated with the idea of lust towards a specific person and are unable to come to reality. Throughout Act III, the characters become lost in their reality and their personal emotions. The Lovers’ vision becomes blurry and the reality is not relevant, they only seek lust from the next blur they lay eyes on.
William Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream utilizes the technique of multiple characters playing leading roles. The fairy character Puck stands out as a dominant and leading role in the play. Puck is the best fit for the role of the protagonist because he is mischievous and therefore, has the ability to change the outcome of the play through his schemes and actions. As the protagonist, Puck is responsible for creating the major conflict that occurs between the four lovers throughout the play. This is important because the play focuses on the lives and relationships of the lovers. In addition, because of Puck’s interaction with these characters, his actions throughout the play, alters the final outcome. Finally, Puck’s relationship with all the mortals in the play, his connection to his fellow fairies, and the bond he has with his boss, King Oberon make him the best choice for a protagonist.
the laws of man and kept in check by society's own norms. The human struggle to
In A Midsummer Night's Dream, playwright William Shakespeare creates in Bottom, Oberon, and Puck unique characters that represent different aspects of him. Like Bottom, Shakespeare aspires to rise socially; Bottom has high aims and, however slightly, interacts with a queen. Through Bottom, Shakespeare mocks these pretensions within himself. Shakespeare also resembles King Oberon, controlling the magic we see on the stage. Unseen, he and Oberon pull the strings that control what the characters act and say. Finally, Shakespeare is like Puck, standing back from the other characters, acutely aware of their weaknesses and mocks them, relishing in mischief at their expense. With these three characters and some play-within-a-play enchantment, Shakespeare mocks himself and his plays as much as he does the young lovers and the mechanicals onstage. This genius playwright who is capable of writing serious dramas such as Hamlet and Julius Caesar is still able to laugh at himself just as he does at his characters. With the help of Bottom, Oberon, and Puck, Shakespeare shows us that theatre, and even life itself, are illusions that one should remember to laugh at.
The funniest part of this play seems to be when Puck, the trickster, keeps mixing up the people who he is assigned to put the love juice on. Even when he did put the love juice into the right people's eyes, they still fell in love with the wrong people sometimes. The first example of this mistake of Puck's is where he puts the love juice in Lysander's eyes, mistaking him for Demetrius. Oberon tells Puck to put the love juice in the eyes of an Athenian man, Demetrius, and to make sure that the first thing he sees after this is the woman whom he hates, but who loves him so much, Helena. Puck ends up finding Lysander and Hermia, lovers, sleeping on the forest floor. He puts the love juice in Lysander's eyes and leaves. Then along come Helena and Demetrius to this spot. They are still arguing and Demetrius leaves her with the sleeping Lysander and Hermia. Helena notices them there and tries to wake Lysander. Lysander wakes and the first thing he sees is Helena. "And run through fire for thy sweat sake. Transparent Helena! Nature shows art, That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart."(2.2.103). This is what Demetrius says to Helena when he sees her. He has fallen in love with her. This is where the comedy of this love mix up begins. Now Helena is confused and thinks that Lysander is playing a trick on her so she runs away. This is a most particularly funny part of the play and these mix ups with whom loves who seem to be the funniest pieces of the play.
Titania repeatedly refuses to give up the Indian boy and Oberon decides to take action in bringing his insidious plan to reality. While talking to Puck, his fairy prankster, Oberon tells him: “Having once this juice, / I’ll watch Titania when she is asleep, / And drop the liquor of it in her eyes. / The next thing then she waking looks upon, / Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull, / On meddling monkey, or on busy ape, / She shall pursue it with the soul of love” (Shakespeare II.i.176-182). This evil plan shows connections to woman being mistreated. In other words, Titania is being shown as a nobody, as Katherine Koci, author of Feminism in a Patriarchal Society, has stated that a woman is “the equivalen...
In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare the number of hidden suggestions are countless. Shakespeare uses metaphors and foreshadowing within imagery, in monologues to discretely hint to different characters as well as suggest events that have yet to happen. Shakespeare uses imagery in monologues to hide metaphors and foreshadows events about to happen as a way to express the story in different lights. In Titania’s monologue, on page thirty, I will delve into the different metaphors and foreshadowing expressed through imagery.
In Shakespeare’s Midsummer’s Night Dream he entices the reader using character development, imagery, and symbolism. These tools help make it a wonderful play for teens, teaching them what a well-written comedy looks like. As well as taking them into a story they won’t soon forget.
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.
Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is often read as a dramatization of the incompatibility of “reason and love” (III.i. 127), yet many critics pay little attention to how Shakespeare manages to draw his audience into meditating on these notions independently (Burke 116). The play is as much about the conflict between passion and reason concerning love, as it is a warning against attempting to understand love rationally. Similarly, trying to understand the play by reason alone results in an impoverished reading of the play as a whole – it is much better suited to the kind of emotive, arbitrary understanding that is characteristic of dreams. Puck apologises directly to us, the audience, in case the play “offend[s]” us, but the primary offence we can take from it is to our rational capacity to understand the narrative, which takes place in a world of inverses and contrasts. The fantastical woods is contrasted to the order of the Athenian law, and Elizabethan values of the time are polarised throughout the narrative, such as Helena’s feeling ugly even though she is tall and fair. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is thus not solely a comedic meditation on the nature of the origin or meaning of love, it also cautions against trying to rationalise the message of the play. Puck, who by his very nature cannot exist in rational society, propels the action of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He is a manifestation of mischief and the unpredictability of nature, which governs not only the fantastical woods outside of Athens, but also the Athenians themselves when it comes to love. Yet, it is Puck, and thus nature, which rectifies the imbalance of the lovers in the beginning of the play. Rationalising, o...
In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the main conflict is between love and social relations. The play revolves around the magical power of love which transforms many lives. As a result of this, it gets the reader’s emotionally involved through ways of reminding us of love’s foolishness and capabilities, as well as violence often followed alongside of lust. This play shows passion’s conflict with reason. For example, the father presented in the play Egeus, represents tradition and reason while Hermia represents passion for love and freedom. Egeus wants Hermia to marry Demetrius and accuses Lysander of “bewitching” Hermia with love charms and songs. This is one way love’s difficulties are presented in the play between father and daughter. Additionally, Helena recognizes love’s difficulties when Demetrius falls in love with her best friend Hermia. Helena argues that strong emotions such as love can make extremely unpleasant things beautiful. This is another way the play presents love’s difficulties between lovers and capricious emotions.
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.
Love plays a very significant role in this Shakespearian comedy, as it is the driving force of the play: Hermia and Lysander’s forbidden love and their choice to flee Athens is what sets the plot into motion. Love is also what drives many of the characters, and through readers’ perspectives, their actions may seem strange, even comical to us: from Helena pursuing Demetrius and risking her reputation, to fairy queen Titania falling in love with Bottom. However, all these things are done out of love. In conclusion, A Midsummer Night’s Dream displays the blindness of love and how it greatly contradicts with reason.
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
...age. Instead of laughing at Bottom, the film generates a feeling of sorrow for his character. When the wine is poured on him when the craftsmen first meet, Bottom takes an obvious emotional blow, so one can see how he would artificially inflate himself with the false perception of being a wonderful actor. When chosen to perform for Thesseus’s wedding, the players are very nervous and turn to Bottom for comfort. They look up to and respect Bottom for his confidence and acting ability, but Bottom later makes a fool of himself in the play by over dramatizing the part of Pyramus, especially when he performs the death of Pyramus. Michael Hoffman’s adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream brings a classical play to a modern audience and makes it an exciting and humorous experience. This is accomplished most notably with the direction he gives to the two characters discussed. The animated humor of Bottom and the slightly more subtle badgering of other characters brought forth by Puck creates a certain amount of attachment to the movie by the viewer. The cinematic version of Shakespeare’s play is well adapted to a modern audience, especially through the characters of Puck and Nick Bottom.
He is aware that Cupid hit a certain flower petal with his arrow and that if the juice of the flower is squeezed in an individual’s eyelids while he or she is sleeping, then that person awakes, he or she will fall in love with the person he/she sees first. Oberon requests Puck to bring him the flower. His plan is that, when Titania is distracted with love feelings over any creature she sees, he can more easily persuade her to hand over the boy. In fact, his trick also creates a self-conflict within Titania since she falls in love with the man who, due to Puck’s trick, has a donkey 's head. Then, we observe that at this moment, the magic created conflict within the story line. Nevertheless, when Oberon has secured the boy, he applies the supernatural or magic, to restore Titania again and their quarrel comes to an end, the magic has successfully recovered the married couple’s