Midsummer Night's Dream

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a masterful piece of literature that both directly and indirectly comments on the reality of control and power in Western cultures. Shakespeare’s ability to depict human nature gives us insight into how English society functioned in his lifetime, but more importantly allows us to analyze our own perspective of ourselves and the world around us. One way Shakespeare articulates his ideas is through well constructed metaphors and similies, resulting in more powerful writing. One very significant metaphor is spoken by Theseus early on in Act 1, scene 1. Egeus has brought his daughter, Hermia, to the royal court to for Theseus’s opinion on Hermia’s marriage. Egeus has arranged for Hermia to marry Demetrius, a very worthy suitor, but Hermia is truly in love with another man, Lysander. This dilemna is explained to Theseus and he states, “To you your father should be as a god;/ One that composed your beauties, yea, and one/ To whom you are but as a form in wax/ By him imprinted and within his power/ To leave the figure or disfigure it” (I.i.51-55). In summary, Theseus is defending Egeus by saying Hermia was created by Egeus and his will determines her fate. Behind this metaphor is a simple idea that proves how a desire to control can have many unintended consequences as well as negative effects. In order to understand this concept more effectively, it is crucial to analyze how influence is structured socially. The quote demonstrates

Love is a timeless topic which Shakespeare explores in depth in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream “. Shakespeare utilizes the format of a play within a play to communicate the complexities of love. Love is a force that characters cannot control. The play includes scenes of lovers searching for fulfillment in the arms of characters who are unavailable. The magic love potion wreaks havoc between actual lovers and it is clear just how negatively it is portrayed. The entire play revolves around the difficulties of maintaining love and how foolish and insecure the pursuit of love can make us. It also touches on the fickleness of love, that love can be

Love is such an abstract and intangible thing, yet it is something that everyone longs for. In Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the difficulty of love is explored through the obstacles that characters have to face while pursuing their loved ones. Those characters that are in love in the play were conflicted with troubles; however, the obstacles of love do not seem to stop them from being infatuated with each other. The concept of true love is examined throughout this play. By creating obstacles using authority and a higher power, Shakespeare examines the power of love. Through Hermia and Lysander’s loving words, it is reasonable to conclude that love conquers all if you believe in it.

Hermia’s speech in Act 2, Scene 2, of Shakespeare 's A Midsummer Night’s Dream, contains an abundance of dream imagery. She has awoken from a terrible dream after falling asleep in the forest with Lysander. They were lost and tired so they decided to rest. Lysander wanted to sleep beside her but, she refused since they are not yet married and while they slept Puck applied a love potion on Lysander’s eyes thinking he was Demetrius. Lysander wakes and is repulsed by the sight of Hermia and never wants to see her again because he is now in love with Helena. Hermia awakes from her terrible dream and retells it thinking that Lysander is nearby listening. Then she realizes that he is not there and she does not see him anywhere. Hermia expresses the sentiment that she will find Lysander or she will surely die. She stated,

Have you ever heard a quote that really stood out to you. And then you went and told you friends that quote and they liked it. And they told people who told other people and then everyone liked. Eventually, you know with all the social media programs these days, its going to end up on facebook or instagram and even more people are going to find out about it. Thats one way a quote can become famous but another way is if it is in a popular movie or book. In this case it is from one of Shakespeare's finest and most known, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream the quote “the course of true love never did run smoothly” applies to the different people in the book: the first couple is Hermia and Lysander, Second Demetrius and Helena, and finally Pyramus and Thisbe.

Shakespeare’s usage of metaphor and simile in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is best understood as an attempt to provide some useful context for relationships and emotions, most often love and friendship, or the lack thereof. One example of such a usage is in Act 3, Scene 2 of the play. Here, the two Athenian couples wake up in the forest and fall under the effects of the flower, thus confusing the romantic relationships between them. Hermia comes to find her Lysander has fallen for Helena. Hermia suspects that the two have both conspired against her in some cruel joke, and begins lashing out against Helena. She says “We, Hermia, like two artificial gods, / Have with our needles created both one flower, / Both one sampler sitting on one cushion, / Both warbling of one song, both in one key; / As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds, / Had been incorporate. So we grew together, / Like a double cherry, seeming parted; / But yet a union in partition / Two lovely berries moulded on one stem: / So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart; / Two of the first, like coats in heraldry, / Due but to one, and crowned with one crest.” (Shakespeare 2.3.206-13). Shakespeare writes this list of vibrant metaphors to establish the prior relationship between these two characters and to make it evident how affected Helena is by this unexpected turn of events, as well as to add a greater range of emotion to the comedy, thereby lending it more literary and popular appeal.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a Shakespeare-written play containing a five-act, play-within-a-play structure about the misunderstanding and confusion in love among other themes. Shakespeare paints Midsummer’s scenes into an imbalance of what’s real and fiction, dark or light. The play’s structure allows the audience to ask questions about the nature of Shakespeare’s society and of love itself. The tradesmen’s play-within-a-play functions as a developing comic relief between the main story line, as well as a look inside the society in the world of Shakespeare, theatricality and a reflective parody of the confusion and imbalance in each setting.

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the audience is never truly privy to any of the characters’ dreams; however, Shakespeare portrays reality as a sort of dream. The forest symbolizes a realm where anything can happen, with no regard for time or logic, much like in a dream. Therefore, when the lovers come out of the forest, without explanation for their actions, they believe it to be a dream, even though it had real-life consequences. By having the characters talk about their dreams and believe their realities to be dreams, the play explores the idea that dreams demonstrate reality, in that they show fears and desires, but it also explores the idea that reality can be affected by dreams. While Hoffman’s movie adaptation recognizes this in some aspects, it does not explore it in entirely the same manner.

William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream has been categorized as a comedy play because of all the characters being passionately in love to the point of being foolish. It’s a play all about love, and the characters that are in love are only young adults, so they are still naive when it comes to love. Their naivety and foolishness regarding love is what allows them to be taken advantage of by mischievous fairies when they all run away into the woods. By critiquing the love affairs and numerous misunderstandings that occur within the mystical woods, I argue that Shakespeare 's A Midsummer Night 's Dream portrays the characters’ young love as a foolish fantasy with drastic consequences.

“Lord, what fools these mortals be!”“The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.” “A tragedy is a tragedy, and at the bottom, all tragedies are stupid. Give me a choice and I 'll take A Midsummer Night 's Dream over Hamlet every time. Any fool with steady hands and a working set of lungs can build up a house of cards and then blow it down, but it takes a genius to make people laugh.” The combination of William Shakespeare, Horace Walpole,and Steven King run together to speak on the topic of comedies. We as human beings, being social creatures, have a need to laugh. We find many things humours, and there are many types of comedies, as well as uses for the comedies we make. There are many different forms of comedy from many different time periods which all fall within three overarching sections; verbal, physical, and literary.

Shakespeare's play “Midsummer Night’s Dream” was portrayed very effectively through the Hoffman movie as it followed the themes of the original play, it effectively uses cinema techniques, and helps the audience connect and learn. Theme are an important part of a play and the Hoffman movie admires these themes and portrays them phenomenally well. The Hoffman movie shows the power of dreams and how real they seem but at the end some of us are affected as others are just touched. A major theme of shakespeare's play is reality vs dream, the Hoffman movie portrays this theme very similarly resulting in a more influential play that follows shakespeare's ideas and so without the replica of these themes the movie wouldn't seem as a effective representation.

For generations, Shakespeare’s masterpieces have remained at the peak of the ever increasing bar of literary works. A reason for this could be the inclination of everyday people to the consistent and underlying concept of romance in each of Shakespeare’s plays and related movies. For instance, one could look at the movies A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Shakespeare in Love. The latter follows the life of William Shakespeare himself, everything from his love affair with Viola de Lesseps to his creation of Romeo and Juliet. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is one of the most famous plays of Shakespeare’s, revolving around the tumultuous relationships of four lovers, aided, and sometimes thwarted by the mischief of fairies. Although Shakespeare in Love outlines a few of the characteristics, such as the triumphs over obstacles, presence of danger, and humourous qualities that define Shakespearian romance, A Midsummer Night’s Dream provides depth into these feelings, displaying more, if not better examples of the complex type of “love” that Shakespeare portrays.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play about four Athenian lovers. Theseus listens to both Hermia and her father’s request and he tells her to bend to her father’s will or die due to the old Athenian law. Hermia and Lysander flee Athens, into the domain of the fairy kingdom. At this time, Oberon is in a fight with Titania. This fight is over a human child of Titania’s friend. Oberon tells Puck, one of his loyal servants, to get a flower hit by Cupid’s arrow, and drop the oil into Demetrius’s and Titania’s eyes. However, Puck drops the oil into Lysander’s eyes due to Oberon’s vague description, making him fall in love with Helena and despise Hermia. Titania falls in love Bottom, who has the head of an ass, after Oberon places the oil

How does the ‘play within the play’ enhance your enjoyment of the rest of A Midsummer Night’s Dream? If not, why not?

When you walk into the theatre you are instantly swept away to another place. A place without fear. A place without any doubt. A place without burden. Whether you are in the audience for the first time or your fiftieth time. Whether you are performing for the first time or the fiftieth time. You will always experience the same emotions and connections as the people around you.