Fairies, plays, lovers, and magic are all important elements in William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The most important of these is magic. The fairies in this play use their magic to throw parties and to cause problems. Most of the complications within this play are caused by magic, and more specifically, Puck. This paper will argue that Shakespeare uses magic to create conflict by tricking others through the use of Puck’s magic, turning Bottom’s head into a donkey head, and using flower juice to cross lovers. First, Shakespeare uses Puck to trick other people. He is a jokester and he is almost a bully to the other characters. Examples are given in Act II, Scene I: When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile, Neighing in likeness of …show more content…
This tends to cause problems because it makes people upset with him and affects others by hurting them or embarrassing them in front of their peers. Furthermore, Shakespeare utilizes Puck’s magic to turn Bottom’s head into an ass head. This is done as Bottom is hiding in the bushes whilst the actors are rehearsing their show for the duke. When Bottom makes his entrance, all of the men are scared and don’t realize who they’re looking it. Quoting, “Oh, monstrous! Oh, strange! We are haunted. Pray, masters! Fly, masters! Help,” (Act III.i) shows the actors running away from Bottom when they first see him. Similarily, magic is used to make lovers within the play desire someone else. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, there is a love square between Hermia, Lysander, Helena, and Demetrius. Oberon tells Puck to fetch a magic flower and drop its juice in Demetrius’s eyes. Puck, however, accidentally uses the magic juice on Lysander and causes him to fall out of love with Hermia, and to fall in love with Helena. Helena then gets angry and yells at both men as well as Hermia, as shown in this quote, “Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born? When at your hands did I deserve this score,” (Act II.i). The magic flower is also used on Titania. She is in love with Oberon, but falls in love with Bottom because of the
Puck is the only character that is directly involved in all of the action that takes place throughout the play. Although the action doesn’t affect Puck personally, without him, the events of the play wouldn’t take place. According to critic Ana Isabel Bordas del Prado, Puck is completely crucial to the play, “although he appears to be a kind
One of William Shakespeare’s best remembered plays for its comical and ironic tone is A Midnight’s Summer Dream. There were characters designed to be humorous and that alone. Puck and Bottom behave very much alike, and have similar roles for different people. Both Puck and Bottom are comic relief characters in one way or the other. Both of them are needed for the play, because Puck’s spirits controls the whole story, which sets the tone for it, and Bottoms comic relief for the audience and play.
Shakespeare uses many different themes to present love; relationships, conflict, magic, dreams and fate. Overall, he presents it as something with the ability to make us act irrationally and foolishly. Within A Midsummer Night's Dream we see many examples of how being 'in love' can cause someone to change their perspective entirely. 'The path of true love never did run smooth' is a comment made from one of the main characters, Lysander, which sums up the play's idea that lovers always face difficult hurdles on the path to happiness and will usually turn them into madmen.
Throughout the play A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare uses both fate and free will to present his philosophy towards the nature of love. The characters struggle through confusion and conflicts to be with the one they love. Although the course of their love did not go well, love ultimately triumphs over all at the end of the play. The chaos reaches a climax causing great disruption among the lovers. However, the turmoil is eventually resolved by Puck, who fixes his mistake. The confusion then ends and the lovers are with their true love. Throughout the play Shakespeare's philosophy was displayed in various scenes, and his concept still holds true in modern society.
William Shakespeare is the author of the comedy play ‘A Midsummer Nights Dream’. This play was written around 1595. In this essay I will be answering the question how does Shakespeare creates humour in act 5 scene 1. There are many reasons as to how the play was humorous; one of the main reasons was the staging you would have the real audience, the court on the stage and on the original stage you would have the mechanicals perform. The other reasons on how Shakespeare creates humour are with the characters (fairies, court and mechanicals) and the repetitive incorrect use of language and errors. An example of this could be when in act 5 scene 1
True love’s path is paved with every step. Through the assistance of fanciful elements as well as characters Puck and Oberon, the true message of love in William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is revealed. The four lovers know the direction in which their hearts are inclined to turn, but when the love potion is administered, the bounds of their rectangle are thrashed without knowledge or consent. The rapid shifts in affection between the play’s “four lovers” is representative of the idea that love isn’t a conscious choice, but a cruel game in which we are the figurines, being controlled by whomever the player may be, relating the characters’ karmic fates.
Control is an important theme in literature, and in life. In the majority of William Shakespeare’s famous plays and sonnets, important themes and ideas are subtly introduced to the audience, ones that remain relevant to human life even today. In the majority of William Shakespeare’s famous plays and sonnets, the characters are no strangers to conflict, and often, these subtle themes are the cause. In Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, control is to blame for the majority of conflict, as parental and governmental control compels Hermia and Lysander to flee into the wood, magical control provokes conflict between Helena and Hermia, and a prank played on Bottom is the cause of conflict and unrest amongst the workmen.
This is explained in the quote, “Masters, I am to discourse wonders: but ask me not / what; for if I tell you, I am no true Athenian. I / will tell you every thing, right as it fell out” (4.2.29-32). Bottom experiences this odd the situation; however he considered it to be a dream. He never suspects the doing of magic because he is a human who has never experienced magic. Bottom cannot grasp the concept of magic. Bottom’s friends are scared of the results of the magic when Puck transformed Bottom’s head. Quince says,“Bless thee, Bottom! Bless thee! thou art translated” (3.1.120). After seeing the transformation the friends run away because they are afraid. Shakespeare seems to make fun of the humans and their insufficiency in with some areas. For example, humans cannot grasp the concept of magic or fairies. Instead of thinking about how the transformation happened they are simply too scared. Not to mention that throughout A Midsummer Night’s Dream, he makes fun of the amateur actors and their ability to perform the Pyramus and Thisbe play.
In the play, A Midsummer Night’s dream, Hermia, Egeus’s daughter is denied to wed her love Lysander, but has to comply with her father’s wishes and marry Demetrius. Infuriated, Hermia runs off with Lysander to his aunt’s house, sick of the Athenian law. As the lovers wander off into the forest, Helena, who is madly in love with Demetrius, tells him about the whereabouts of Hermia. In another part of the forest, Oberon, king of fairies meets Titania, the queen of fairies, arguing for a changeling child from India. When Titania refuses to give him up, Oberon plans revenge, by hiring Robin Goodfellow, also known as “Puck”, to retrieve a magical love flower, anointing her eyes and Demetrius’s, feeling bad for Helena after how Demetrius had treated her. Accidentally, Puck spreads it on Lysander’s eyes, creating major conflicts, later being resolved as the 4 lovers get married.
In the comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the plethora of comedic styles used by Shakespeare illustrate his intention to poke fun at love throughout the play. The play is notorious for its intricate and irrational plotline, mainly due to the constantly shifting love triangles. Once the powerful fairies become involved with the fate of the naive lovers – Demetrius, Helena, Lysander and Hermia – matters are further complicated. The complication inflicted by the fairies is credited to the powerful love potion that Oberon, King of the Fairies, hands over to Puck, a mischievous fairy, to use on his wife Titania, with intentions to embarrass and distract her. This spiteful attitude is due to Oberon and Titania’s argument over the custody of an
Shakespeare often portrays Puck and Bottom as fools and pranksters when he writes: "Why do they run away? This is a knavery of them to make me afeard” and, "Believe me, King of Shadows, I mistook. Did not you tell me I should know the man
The Shakespearean Puck well illustrates the
The hilarious play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare, tells the twisted love story of four Athenians who are caught between love and lust. The main characters: Hermia, Helena, Lysander, and Demetrius are in a ‘love square’. Hermia and Lysander are true love enthusiasts, and love each other greatly. Demetrius is in love with Hermia, and Helena, Hermia’s best friend, is deeply and madly in love with Demetrius. Hermia and Lysander try to elope in the woods because Egeus, Hermia’s father, disapproves of Lysander. Helena, hearing about their plans, tells Demetrius, and all four of them end up in the woods where Lysander’s quotation, “The course of true love never did run smooth”(28), becomes extremely evident due to several
In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare easily blurs the lines of reality by inviting the audience into a dream. He seamlessly toys with the boundaries between fantasy and reality. Among the patterns within the play, one is controlled and ordered by a series of contrasts: the conflict of the sleeping and waking states, the interchange of reality and illusion, and the mirrored worlds of Fairy and Human. A Midsummer Night's Dream gives us insight into man's conflict with characteristics of human behavior.
The story of A Midsummer Night's Dream was mainly about love and its abnormal dealings. In the play, Shakespeare tried to show that love is unpredictable, unreasonable, and at times is blind. The theme of love was constantly used during the play and basically everything that was said and done was related to the concept of love and its unpredictable ness. Shakespeare made all of the characters interact their lives to be based on each other’s. At first, everything was very confusing, and the characters were faced with many different problems. In the end, however, they were still able to persevere and win their true love, the love they were searching for in the first place.