Magic In A Midsummer Night's Dream Essay

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Introduction Magic affects both the plot and the environment of William Shakespeare’s play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” as it influences the thoughts and actions of the characters through most of the play. Through its power, magic confuses the characters and creates conflicts between them, but it also solves the conflicts. The character’s use and misuse of magic lead to some of the ridiculous moment of the play. This paper explains the role of magic in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Discussion Magic is one of the essential elements in William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In the play, the use and misuse of magic lead to the most curious and comical situations. The major conflict in A Midsummer Night’s Dream arises when magic meets After all, Puck has no idea that there is an actually two Athenians in the forest that night and innocently mistake Demetrius for Lysander. However, Puck puts the love potion on Demetrius’ eyes as well so that the two Athenian men are following Helena. This error creates a high allotment of conflict among the characters for various reasons: (a) Helena doesn’t believe that any of the two gentlemen is sincere and believes that both of them and Hermia are playing jokes on her. (b) Now that Lysander is also following Helena, the poor Hermia is left without any sexual partner. (c) This mix-up creates lots of animosity among the characters more so the two ladies who now feel betrayed by one another. Therefore, we observe that the supernatural flower or the magic created another conflict in the play. Puck takes great enjoyment in this battle as seen in the phrases, “Shall we their fond pageant see? / Lord, what fools these mortals be!” (115-116). Nevertheless, again, everything is restored back before the play comes to an end. Puck uses the supernatural powers to make Lysander fall for Hermia again as Demetrius remains in love with Helena. Conclusion From Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, we can conclude that magic creates both conflicts and their solutions

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