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Athens and Forest Reading Through a Midsummer Night’s Dream, Written by William Shakespeare, It Is Easy to Find Out That the Play Can Be Separated by Two Sides Generally. One of Them Is Near World, Represents Complexity,

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Athens and Forest
Reading through A Midsummer Night’s Dream, written by William Shakespeare, it is easy to find out that the play can be separated by two sides generally. One of them is near world, represents complexity, statutory and fact. The other one is mystical kingdom, represents simplicity, freedom and dream. William Shakespeare uses antithesis to point out the differences from near world and mystical kingdom. The first thing, there are some differences in the complexity of people’s life. Athens, in the other words near world, wedding is a complicated ceremony. In ancient Athens, wedding ceremonies started after dark. Her family followed the chariot on foot, carrying the gifts. Friends of the bride and groom lit the way, carrying torches and playing music to scare away evil spirits (Unknown). Especially for the royalties, they usually hire hundreds of people to ready the performances for their wedding. Those multifarious ceremonies are used to entertainment and invocation. In addition, civility is very important and complexity. Talking with people who have higher rank, they have to use many humble words to show their respect. Beside near world, mystical kingdom does not have that much propriety. Spirits do not need many ways to disport. They are so simply that even a mirror can make them happy.
William Shakespeare also points out the second difference in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which is legal system. In Athens, people have laws to limit women’s right. Women have to listen to her father or the other men in her family. They must obey laws or be punished. According to a book A Day in Old Athens, Athenian marriages are arranged. — Over this typical Athenian home reigns the wife of the master. Public opinion frowns upon celibacy, and there are relatively few unmarried men in Athens. An Athenian girl is brought up with the distinct expectation of matrimony. Opportunities for a romance almost never will come her way; but it is the business of her parents to find her a suitable husband (David). This book was also compared to a Picture of Athenian Life. Women do not have choices for her husband. However, mystical kingdom has more freedom in legal system. Even though there are King Oberon and Queen Titania in mystical kingdom, little spirits can have a relationship with the King and the Queen as friends instead of the relationship between bond servant and slave owner. They have their own mind of love. On the one hand, Athens, embodiment of fact, is ruthless and practical. People have to work for their life. It is the world that William Shakespeare was living in. Writer complained the darkness and callosity through the depiction of Athens. On the other hand, mystical kingdom, representation of dream, is wonderful and upbeat. For mortal, the things that have happened in the story are dreams. Instead of dream, it more likes the expectation of William Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream finds its setting is a complex, imaginative world, which we can imagine as containing waking and dreaming modes. In its waking mode, the humans live as if on the shore with the firm belief that their shore is the only irreversible reality. The waking mode is controlled by Theseus’ “cool reason” (IV. i. 6), a tool applicable only to certain areas in life and nature; hence it cannot encompass the whole truth. This waking mode—the rational, critical, analytical, and practical attitude—is compensated in Dream by a dreaming mode—the irrational and invisible forces working through the Fairies. Rational things are juxtaposed with irrational things, and we see how one is incomplete without the other. The play owes its strength to its paradoxical field of meaning, woven out of history/mystery; culture/nature; reality/dream; intellect/instincts; life/art; wisdom/imbecility; and masculine/feminine (Ismail). In the end of the play, the lovers get together, friends get back, and capital crime was absolved. In conclusion, William Shakespeare wrote the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream in two worlds. One is near world, full of complexity, statutory and bloodiness, and the other one, full of simplicity, freedom and fantasy. Comparing two worlds, he described the fact and also shows his dream.

Works Cited

Unknown. “Greek Culture”. Crystalinks. Web. 15 Decembers 2011

Davis, William Stearns, et al. A Day in Old Athens. Book Rags. Web. 15 December. 2011

Ismail Wali, Ph.D. ed. “Shakespeare’s Syzygy of Meaning”. The Jung Page. 16 March 2009. Web. 15 December. 2011

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