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Seasons In A Midsummer Night's Dream Essay

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In A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, the seasons are vital to the development of several relationships. Seasons are first presented in the title. Each season offers a different attitude. Summer is known for freedom and romance, where winter in contrast is shown with themes of bitterness and death. The season of the play and the themes associated with it allow the characters in the comedy to progress in their romantic relationships. The seasons heavily affect the relationships of the inhabitants of the magical world. Fairy royalty Titania and Oberon, along with their attendants see over the magical world. Oberon and Titania, being king and queen, respectively, are in a fight over an Indian prince. Oberon desires the “little …show more content…

In the natural world there is strife among four lovers. The lovers include a couple, Hermia and Lysander, a competitor for Hermia’s love, Demetrius, and a friend of Hermia and a seeker Demetrius’s love, Helena. The four are affected by the fairies seasonal mix up as well as the fairies interfering with the lover affairs by using a “juice” that causes the affected to “pursue” “the next thing… [they] look upon… with the soul of love” (2.1.177, 180, 183). The love potion put on the lovers causes confusion and conflict among the women. Hermia and Helena argue over the men, who have both been unknowingly tainted with the love potion. This leads to arguments over their friendship which was once so strong that the two were “two seeming bodies but one heart” as well as their physical insecurities (3.2.212). The women are forcing their angers on to each other both because they are angry at each other and because of the love potion confusion and the season switch. Thomas C. Foster describes “hard-wired” traits of winter, which could be the season summer has been confused with by the fairies, as filled with “resentment” and “dissatisfaction” with things life people (186). Towards the end of the comedy, the fight between Titania and Oberon was solved, causing their negative effects in the physical world to subside and allow the seasons to stop their “dissension” (2.1.116). Additionally, the fairies

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