Normally, in a regular play there is a protagonist or main character, but in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare, there is not a single main character, other than many different characters who play equally important roles. Puck, also known as Robin Good fellow, a hobgoblin jester to the fairy king, Oberon, has a key role in expressing the mood and the diverse contrasts in the play. His characteristics set the atmosphere of the play, and he is involved with changing the love “triangle” of the Athenians, and Titania. He is used as comic relief, and to add some mischief to the play. He is the cause of many of the misfortunate mistakes that take place in the play.
Puck is seen as the fun-loving jokester of the play who mischievously messes with people’s minds, such as Bottom, Lysander, and Demetrius. Since Puck is one who plans out the unfortunate events of the play, he is one of the few characters who actually understands and knows what is happening, while everyone else, besides Oberon, is overall confused. He does not care if the humans suffer. He accidentally rubs the love potion on Lysander, who initially loves Hermia without magic, and Demetrius’s eyes, and causes them to fall in love
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He is fun-loving, but at the same time will not think twice about his rude pranks. He is different than the majority of the other fairies in the dream world. He is elegant, but also not as sweet as the other creatures in the fairy world. He does not care much about others feelings, but also obeys Oberon’s commands. He sees everything as a prank, and enjoys the comic relief in it, but also at the end of the play (V.i.440-445), he reminds everyone there is a dark side in the world, life comes to death, and the mending of problems and people is good. Shakespeare uses Puck as comic relief to the audience, and add mischief into the play, by making him meddle with the lives of the
Bottom is so in love with himself that he wants an entire section of the play—in which he is already the lead of—dedicated to himself. Bottom’s arrogance relates to A Midsummer Night Dream’s themes of mayhem and disorder because after Puck transforms Bottom’s head into that of an ass, his appearance strikes fear into his cast members and interrupts their play rehearsal. The players run away from Bottom, with Quince shouting of being haunted (3.1.46-47). But it is apparent that even after Puck alters him, Bottom’s arrogance is still present. When Snout asks him how he changed, Bottom responds with: “What do you see?
... featured one last time in the epilogue to this scene, where he tells the audience that if they do not enjoy the play, they should think of it as nothing more than a dream. If the audience does enjoy the play, they should give Puck "their hands," or applaud. Thus Puck is cleaning up for more than the fairies problems in the last soliloquy, as he cleans up for the entire play as well. Both of the fools were necessary in this play. Puck's tricks and loyalty makes Oberon's goals and the happiness of the lovers possible. Bottom's foolishness provides for comedy for both the characters in the play and the audience, and it’s his transformation which enables Oberon to obtain the boy from Titania. Puck, Oberon's fool, and Bottom, the fool of the play, both provide comedy and some-what intelligent observations, which make them an important part of A Midsummer Night's Dream.
To start off, my favorite character in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is Hermia because she is loving. At the beginning of the play, Hermia’s father is ordering her to marry a man she doesn’t love. When she hears this news, yes she is very, very troubled and sad, but she doesn’t have an emotional freak out in front of everyone. Once they leave the room, she and Lysander plan to escape so they may be married. Leaving her family and everything behind was a huge risk, but she was willing to do it for her undying love for Lysander. You could really see how much these two loved one another. In A...
Therefore, there is no other way for Shakespeare to end this crazy entanglement of lovers, mythological beings, fairies, and artisans but to explain it as a dream. Throughout the play, with the nighttime atmosphere and reoccurrence of sleep, the dreamy state of the characters is passed on to the audience. The play itself is left inconclusive when the characters depart, with questions remaining in the audience's mind, but Puck's closing monologue explains that puzzlement is the appropriate emotion to be feeling during the course of the play. He goes on to persuade the audience that the only logical explanation for the unusualness and ambiguity of the play is that, just as the characters themselves experienced, the audience has just awoke from a fantastical dream.
Puck causes the disruption initially, when he intervenes in the lovers' business. Jester and jokester, Puck, otherwise known as Robin Goodfellow, is like a wild, untamed memb...
There are “the lovers”: Lysander and Hermia, Demetrius and Helena (there are other lovers, but these lovers are the main focus of the story). This is a comedy, so in the end they all end up with who they belong and live happily ever after as do all archetypal lovers in comedys. Shakespeare dives even more in archetypal depth than that. There are the clowns, or what might be called “the fools”: Quince, Snug, Bottom, Flute, Snout, and Starveling. They are poor in wealth, they are poor actors, and lack a reasonable amount of common sense, which is shown when they feel the need to explain themselves in the play. Any rational person knows that it is just a play and that the actors are not actually experiencing the events they are acting out, but they are "the fools," who are never rational. They decide it is a good idea to make sure the audience knows that it is not real, which is clearly absurd. Even within their group there is the ruler or leader of the fools, Bottom. He even gets his chance at being a more powerful ruler when Titania falls in love with him. He orders around the fairies like servants and is an ass both literally and figuratively, the kind of foolish ass of a ruler that would abuse his servants and subjects. Oberon is “the magician”, who is pulling the strings and basically conducting the whole play from the background. He decides who loves who, and orders his servant, Robin Goodfellow/Puck to conduct business for him. Puck is slightly mischievous, and although he messes up on accident, he doesn’t hesitate to sit back and laugh at the trouble he has caused, which earns him the archetype of “the
He sends his jester, Puck, to use a flower that, if its juice is dropped onto someone who’s sleeping’s eyes, will make the person fall madly in love with the first person they lie their eyes on. “Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove; A sweet Athenian lady is in love with a disdainful youth; anoint his eyes; but do it when the next thing he espies may be the lady. Thou shalt know the man by the Athenian garments he hath on. ”(64) Puck, following Oberon’s orders, finds Lysander and Hermia instead of Demetrius and Helena.
A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare: Oberon is the Root of All Problems in the Play “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” – Albert Einstein 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.
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 beginning Lysander and Hermia run off to the forest to try to escape the king’s commandments, so they can be together. They believe if they can escape their problems and go somewhere where there is no rules they can finally be happy together. In an essay Bouloussa states how the Athenian lovers (Hermia & Lysander) attempt to escape their problems because they believe this is where there happiness lies. But Helena tells Demetrius and he goes after them, which leads Helena to follow. One day while out Puck and Oberon see Helena and Demetrius fighting and Oberon decides to use the love potion on Demetrius to attempt to fix the love mess. Initially, Puck is only supposed to use the love potion on Demetrius not Lysander. But of course Puck messes up, and ends up using the love potion on both of them, which causes them both to chase after Helena for her love and affection. Furthermore, when she sees them acting this way she believes they are mocking her, so she rejects their
The use and misuse of magic has an important role in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. As a reoccurring theme, Puck’s use of magic creates humor, conflict and balance in the play.
Presented with many obstacles and complications to overcome, we know that Hermia is the protagonist in the play. She has relations with almost all the characters in the play. The first and most important relationship is her love, Lysander. From the very beginning we see that Hermia loves Lysander with all her heart and soul and he loved her the same. The only tragic flaw in their relationship was when Puck put the magic juice in Lysander's eyes and he fell in love with Helena. Hermia felt sad and rejected when that happened. But when Puck finally realized that he had made a mistake and corrected it, Hermia and Lysander were in their heavenly bliss of love once again.
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...
Everything is a game to crafty little Puck. Yet once he realizes that he has. caused a problem he will make sure to the best of his ability and power that it is rectified. As in the scene with Hermia and Lysander, and Helena and Demetrius. When Puck mistook Lysander for Demetrius (Shakespeare). had the characters look alike or ‘only slightly individualized') and dropped the love-juice into Lysander's eyes and then (with help from Oberon) realized what. he had done, he knew he had to fix it. & nbsp; Shakespeare conveniently created ‘Puck' to add some probability to the play. Since the typical audience believed in fairies and little people, Puck could be convincing in his role. It is possibly, even today, more plausible to have a little fairy running around causing problems than to have to try and believe that fate and destiny are the cause of all the joy, sadness and bad luck. & nbsp; When William Shakespeare created ‘Puck' it seems as though the play got much more out of the character than intended. This is nice however, as the audience.
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.