The Use Of Metaphors In A Midsummer Night's Dream By William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a play written by one of the greatest playwrights, William Shakespeare. Like almost all writers, Shakespeare uses a wide variety of literary elements to create the story’s components. A major literary element within A Midsummer Night’s Dream is metaphor. Merriam-Webster defines metaphor as “a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them” (Merriam-Webster, Incorporated). In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare uses metaphor to refer to topics such as historical events, love, and the weather. Shakespeare stays true to the meaning of a metaphor and does not use “like” or “as”. For example,

Humans wish to be loved by each other and to feel love and attraction from a significant other. In William Shakespeare’s plays, primarily A Midsummer Night’s Dream, love is one of the major themes. Due to the theme of love in the plays, most literary elements such as metaphor are also centered around love. In Act 1, Scene 1, lines 76-78, Theseus says to Hermia, “But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn, Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness” (Shakespeare 1269). Through this metaphor, Theseus recognizes Hermia’s purity by his description of the distilled, or pure, rose. Theseus expresses to Hermia that he believes she should marry Demetrius. If she does this, then she would not have to either be executed or become a nun. Hermia’s father also believes that she should marry Demetrius, yet she is in love with Lysander. By disobeying her father, Hermia would be subjected to the consequences of execution or joining the sisterhood of the nuns. Theseus uses the metaphor of the virgin thorn to portray what Hermia’s life could look like due to her choices. If Hermia were to choose to not marry Demetrius, she would live a life of bleak and uneventfulness as a nun or die a meaningless life. Still, Theseus gives her the advice to choose between being happy or to live on in sorrow and unhappiness. In Act 1, Scene 1, lines 128-131, Lysander says to Hermia, “How now my love? Why is

In Act 2, Scene 1, lines 103-105, Queen Titania states, “Therefore the moon, the governess of floods, Pale in her anger, washes all the air, That rheumatic diseases do abound” (Shakespeare 1278). Shakespeare personifies the moon in these lines, but his metaphor is the governess of floods. The moon is in control of the tides, and at this point in the season she has begun to flood the rivers. Due to the flooding, people have to leave their homes and livestock that are in flood plains. Crops are destroyed and cattle are killed, leaving the landscape filled with disease from the rotting refuse. Lines 107-111 state, “The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose, And on old Hiems’ thin and icy crown, An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds Is, as in mockery, set” (Shakespeare 1278). Shakespeare uses the metaphor of frost of falling onto roses and ice covering the summer flowers. Normally, the Sun is emitting enough heat during the summer time so that ice does not form, but Shakespeare creates this metaphor to show that the seasons are changing places. Instead of a warm and blooming time, summer has now become winter. Continuing his metaphoric practice in lines 111-114, Shakespeare states, “The spring, the summer, the childing autumn, angry winter change Their wonted liveries: and the mazèd world, by their increase, now knows not which is