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Although a difficult play to read for some, we must carefully review A Midsummer’s Night Dream by William Shakespeare in order to understand why it ranks among his most commonly performed works. After viewing this play, some people view this play as merely as a senseless dream. If we dig deeper, however, we can find an accurate portrayal of the effects of love and revenge. In this review, we will look at a few key characters, an author theme, a literary motif, and a point of view. We will conclude by quickly looking at some other literary devices and personal comments.

 

Shakespeare employed many characters to fill the rolls of protagonists and antagonists relative to each other. He created A Midsummer’s Night Dream by combining many independent sub-stories into one large story. Egeus, Hermia’s excessively controlling father, plays the roll of antagonist in the sub-story of the two lovers Hermia and Lysander by wishing for Hermia to marry Demetrius and attempting to impose the death penalty on her when she refuses. Demetrius serves as the antagonist in the sub-story of Helena’s love for him because he constantly causes Helena to suffer by his constant rejection of her. Oberon, the fairy king, and his page, Robin, serve as overseers who manipulate the four main characters’ feelings of love towards each other (using a magical flower). King Oberon serves as the antagonist in the sub-story of the feud between fairy king Oberon, and queen Titania, for he seeks revenge and attempts to steal a servant boy from Titania by making her fall in love with a donkey-headed man. However, Oberon serves as protagonist in the story of the four lovers, for he, in the end, makes them all happy by helping each of them fall in love with the person they need - which results in all of them finding the happiness they sought through love. All characters in A Midsummer’s Night Dream openly express their feelings. Through this open expression of feelings, Shakespeare clearly portrayed the antagonist and the protagonist. Elegant, flowery woods in A Midsummer’s Night Dream reinforce King Oberon as the protagonist by giving him a pleasant surrounding.

 

Throughout A Midsummer’s Night Dream, Shakespeare utilized an author theme of true love versus senseless love. Shakespeare develops this author theme by first displaying the actions between two characters in true love, then showing the actions between two character when one of which senselessly loves the other. First, he demonstrates true love in Act II, Scene II, when the two tired lovers, Hermia and Lysander, pick a spot to sleep for the night. Lysander says, “One turf shall serve as pillow for us both. One heart, one bed, two bosoms, and one troth.” Hermia rebukes him saying, “Nay, good Lysander. For my sake, my dear, lie further off yet. Do not lie so near.” Quickly, Lysander replies, “O, take the sense, sweet of my innocence. Love takes the meaning in love’s conference. I mean that my heart unto yours is knit. So that but one heart we can make of it. Two bosoms interchainèd with an oath – to then two bosoms and a single troth. Then by your side no bedroom me deny. For lying so, Hermia I do not lie.” From this example alone, we can see that Hermia and Lysander actually love each other, for their love possesses enough strength not to need the physical enhancement of sleeping together. On the other hand, Helena senselessly loves Demetrius and will not leave him alone. When he asks her to leave him alone, and she refuses, he responds with threats of physical violence that seem almost farcical. I very much liked this theme because it really showed how absurd love other than true love looks. It brought out the characters immensely by showing the audience which of the characters to think of as the foolish ones.

 

We can classify both of the two main sub-stories in A Midsummer’s Night Dream as comedies. First, the four lovers fall into tragedy after Robin first afflicts them with the flower. Hermia becomes angry with Lysander because he rejects her and throws himself at the feet of Helena professing his undying love for her. Thinking that both men seek to mock her, Hermia grows angry with Demetrius and Lysandar, thinking that they formulated this plan together. Once Oberon commands Robin to use the flower again to fix what he has done, they all emerge happy and with someone to love. Second, as Quince, the carpenter; Snug, the cabinetmaker; Bottom, the weaver; Flute, the bellows repairman; Snout, the handyman; and Starveling, the tailor begin to put on a play, all seems well. However, they run into many difficulties throughout their rehearsals. They realize that they will have many problems with the female portion of their audience whom might become frightened when they hear the lion or see people commit suicide. Prior to the first show, Nick Bottom disappears and they seriously contemplate canceling the show because they cannot find him and fear that the show cannot go on without him. However, in the end he shows up, which enables them to perform the play.

 

After a quick analysis, we can conclude that Shakespeare wrote A Midsummer’s Night Dream using a mixture of third person limited and unlimited external focus. We see all the actions of the characters, for example in Act III, Scene I, we see the tradesmen rehearsing, and in Act II, Scene II, we see, for a while only, Hermia and Lysander. Shakespeare at no point allowed the reader to enter the mind of any of the characters. Many scholars maintain that Shakespeare possessed an “anti-women” mindset. I believe this play provides much evidence against this belief. Reviewing the story line, we see that in the beginning Demetrius senselessly loved Hermia and Helena senselessly loved Demetrius so we had one foolish man and one foolish woman. Once Robin, Oberon’s male servant, who Shakespeare takes careful measures to indicate lacks intellectually and usually fails simple tasks, uses the flower: we see two foolish men and only one foolish woman. In conclusion, at the climax of this play, Shakespeare had three foolish men and one foolish woman. Had Shakespeare really possessed an anti-women mindset, he would most likely have written the play differently to allot for more foolish men than women.

 

 

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