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How is love portrayed in midsummer nights dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream critical essay
A midsummer night's dream conflicts
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In Shakespeare’s masterpiece, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, he shows the audience his understanding of duality and how he blurs the two together. One example of duality that is very prominent in this play involves the relationships between the fairies and the mortals. Throughout the play, the audience can see the intervention of the fairies in the mortals’ lives, from Puck’s trickery on Bottom to the fairies meddling ways on the Athenians’ love lives, it is illustrated that the fairies in the play maintain a sense of omnipotence while the mortals lack control over their own lives. When the playgoers are first introduced to the mortals, they are under the impression that they control their own lives. Initially, when the four lovers venture out …show more content…
When Puck turns Bottom back to normal he is unable to recall what happened to him as his reality. As he wakes up, he seems to believe that it was all simply a dream: “Stolen/hence and left me asleep! I have had a most rare/vision. I have had a dream past the wit of man to say/what dream it was…Methought I was–there/is no man can tell what…I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this/dream. It shall be called “Bottom’s Dream because/it hath no bottom”(4.1.213-226). With this, the audience can see that the fairies have warped Bottom’s sense of reality, for he can no longer recollect his actions of when he was with …show more content…
It was mentioned before that the fairies had a sense of omnipotence to themselves, and they never fail to display this when in a scene. In another instance, Oberon tells puck to “anoint his eyes/but do it when the next thing he espies/may be the lady” (2.2.269-271). Oberon is clearly exercising his power over Puck in this scene, and shows the audience his ability to wield magic for his own personal use. Oberon does not specify whom he talking about, showing an element of negligence in this scene. The audience can also witness as the rankings of the fairies go down, their power over them remains unyielding. When the audience first meets the character Robin Goodfellow, also know as Puck, they are introduced to a fairy that has tremendous power but uses it for all the wrong reasons. A fairy says, “…You are the shrewd and knavish sprite/Called Robin Goodfellow. Are not you he/That frights the maidens of the villagery” (2.1.34-36). Puck, uses his powers for his amusement, rather than the betterment of the world around him. Overall, the fairies believe in “influencing” the mortals because they are helping them make decisions that the mortals are unable to make without conflict, but it becomes more complicated when the fairies are using their powers for their amusement
Color, for writers through the ages, has been a telling element. A Midsummer Night’s Dream should be no exception to this element. The characters of the story tell a tale of magic; complete with fairies, potions, and a donkey’s head. Each of these effects brings enchantment to the story, charm that can not necessarily be employed naturally on a Middle English stage. The play, itself, talks on the magic that is A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
Exerting the type of power that is influenced by malicious intentions can cause one to make decisions that are not beneficial to others. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is written within a time period and setting that favors men instead of woman. In other words, men have all the authority to control the events that occur in their own lives as well as the lives of others whom are considered insignificant. The plot displays the catalysts that ignite many characters’ desire for control that is misused by higher status people. Shakespeare’s use of characterization demonstrates how the wanting of control causes the characters to act irrationally through the misuse of power. Shakespeare’s use of setting, plot and characterization causes the ordeals that the characters ultimately face. In turn, the deceitful choices of a few individuals with status impacts whether the lives of lower status people are enhanced.
There are several events in the play which at one point or the other take a tragic turn which constantly undercut back into the play by speeches. What is set out in the play is a festive mood where people were engaged in activities of ‘Maying’ where people get together to sing and dance in the woods, activities that led to the maids’ belief that the pursuit if true love can be scored only through divination dreams (Barber 18). The fairy’s existence is conceptualized from the act of fusing pageantry together with popular games in a menacing way bring out their actual image of a relaxed
Fairies, mortals, magic, love, and hate all intertwine to make A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare a very enchanting tale, that takes the reader on a truly dream-like adventure. The action takes place in Athens, Greece in ancient times, but has the atmosphere of a land of fantasy and illusion which could be anywhere. The mischievousness and the emotions exhibited by characters in the play, along with their attempts to double-cross destiny, not only make the tale entertaining, but also help solidify one of the play’s major themes; that true love and it’s cleverly disguised counterparts can drive beings to do seemingly irrational things.
In William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer’s Night Dream” two worlds are contrasted throughout the play. The Athenian state is governed by order, law, and reason; the forest or Fairy world lies within the realm of the imagination where anything is possible. While both worlds run parallel in the play, their inhabitants are influenced by one another. Their rulers, Theseus and Oberon, play critical roles in the events of the story. Theseus acts compassionately with a sense of duty, order and respect; his initial rulings for Hermia provide the exposition for the comedy (May 75). Oberon acts compassionately as well, but acts on a whim and resorts to trickery if it suits his desires; his actions direct the complication in the plot (May 75). Their personalities are characterized by how they attempt to help the young lovers, how and why they make decisions and how they interact with their loved ones and subjects. The rulers’ similarities govern the reasons behind their actions; their differences contribute to the success of the story.
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.
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind. ” (Pg. 18). By creating a comedy using both dramatic and situational irony, Shakespeare was able to get the true meaning of A Midsummer Night’s Dream across to his audience: “love is blind”. When using situational irony, the readers were often tricked into believing in different outcomes to certain events in the story. With dramatic irony, on the other hand, it was used mainly for a comedic effect, rather than creating a plot twist for the audience. By creating a comedy using these two types of irony, Shakespeare was able to deliver his message of the true meaning of love.
In A Midsummer's Night Dream there is a great deal of mirth and whimsy and the supernatural elements are more of a mischievous variety than any kind of sinister entities. For example, in keeping with the humorous order of the day within the play, Shakespeare gives us elements of the supernatural that add to the mood and theme of the piece. For instance, we see supernatural forces in characters like Oberon, "a spirit of another sort", lord of the Realm of Dreams who represents the "white light of dawn" (Lucy 8). Queen Mab and a host of faeries also inhabit this realm of mortals who would be fools. The overall effect o...
A very old Shakespeare’s play “A Midsummers Night Dream” believed to be written in 1590 and 1596 was a classical idea of fantasy. It portrays the journey of four young lovers and their interactions with fairies. They story takes place in a mythical city called Athens with an enchanted forest, where a fairy king misguides the star-crossed lovers and plays tricks on his fairy queen by transforming a poor actor into a half-donkey. This work focuses on human interactions with falling in love.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream portrays magic through many places in the text. Magic is a key component to the plot of the story. Magic can make a problem disappear, or it can intensify the problem. There are many reasons magic is powerful, but one of the main ones is because not everyone understands it. Magic in one way or another affects everyone in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but the perspective with which each character views magic is different. The power of magic is something that is hard to understand, even those who use magic often cannot fully understand magic because in many ways it is irrational and inexplicable.
the laws of man and kept in check by society's own norms. The human struggle to
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
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.
The fairies and the fairy realm have many responsibilities in this play. The most important of which is that they are the cause of much of the conflict and comedy within this story. They represent mischievousness and pleasantry which gives the play most of its emotion and feeling. They relate to humans because they make mistakes but differ in the fact that they do not understand the human world.
...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.