...Explore the ways writer’s present characters in difficult circumstances. What similarities and differences do you find in the ways Juliet in ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and Hermia in ‘A Midsummer night’s dream’ are presented in their battle to be with the man they love. Both plays, Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s dream are based upon the theme of love. Shakespeare’s explores the difficulties faced by the characters in both plays and how they struggle to be with the person they love, I will be exploring two main female characters in both plays which are Juliet in “Romeo and Juliet” and Hermia from “A Midsummer Night’s dream”. Both Women face difficult and challenging decisions throughout the plays however the plays differ on what kind of story they are “Romeo and Juliet” is a tragedy, whereas “A Midsummer Night’s dream” is a comedy. Juliet is in a land of hostility where the audience knows from the very beginning the audience know she is controlled by fate and is going to die at the end. The Audience are told this right at the beginning in the prologue where it says “The fearful passage of their death-marked love,” this tells the audience that the lovers of the story are going to die in a tragic way. On the other hand, Hermia’s surroundings are fair more kind and because the play is a comedy, the audience know it’s going to end with a wedding and you could say “happy ever after”. There are parallels throughout both plays that copy each other but these parallels exist within...
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...Title: Author(s): Publication Details: Source: Document Type: The Carnivalesque in A Midsummer Night's Dream David Wiles Shakespeare and Carnival after Bakhtin. New York: St. Martin's Press, Inc., 1998. Shakespearean Criticism. Ed. Michelle Lee. Vol. 82. Detroit: Gale, 2004. From Literature Resource Center. Critical essay Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale, COPYRIGHT 2007 Gale, Cengage Learning [(essay date 1998) In the following essay, Wiles examines the festive and carnivalesque elements in A Midsummer Night's Dream. According to the critic, the play was historically part of an "aristocratic carnival" used to celebrate weddings in upper-class society.] Carnival theory did not begin with Bakhtin, and we shall understand Bakhtin's position more clearly if we set it against classical theories of carnival.1 From the Greek world the most important theoretical statement is to be found in Plato: The gods took pity on the human race, born to suffer as it was, and gave it relief in the form of religious festivals to serve as periods of rest from its labours. They gave us as fellow revellers the Muses, with Apollo their leader, and Dionysus, so that men might restore their way of life by sharing feasts with gods.2 This is first a utopian theory, maintaining that carnival restores human beings to an earlier state of being when humans were closer to the divine. And second, it associates carnival with communal order. Plato argues that festive dancing creates bodily order, and thus bodily and...
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...Why do people feel the need to control others? In the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare one of the main characters, Hermia is being treated unfairly by her father --Egeus-- and the “Athenian Law”. The Athenian law and Hermia’s father are both treating Hermia unfairly by taking away her right to marry who she loves, threatening to give her an ultimatum if she does not obey, and they are preventing her from maturing on her own. Any parent would want to let their child make their own mistakes, but still wants them to be happy and protected. The Athenian law and Egeus went at this problem the wrong way. Controlling who the daughters of their community marry is a bad idea and could never work. Hermia and her true love show this...
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...A Midsummer’s Night Dream Running Head: A MIDSUMMER’S NIGHT DREAM A Midsummer’s Night Dream David Ephriam Gilbert Bethel University A Midsummer’s Night Dream The imaginative role that we humans all assume in relationships throughout of love, honor, and dignity do not explain how one’s history should be lived. In a Midsummer’s Night Dream, the characters are unique individuals who will do almost anything to demonstrate differing views of affection. In the challenges that are pertinent to a Midsummer’s Night Dream, Lysander and Demetrius are both in love with the same human. Hermia is the “fair one” who both men so desire to marry. Demetrius is favored by Hermia’s father and his happiness for his daughter has been frustrated by misunderstanding or parental opposition. The other love battle is Helena; Hermia’s young childhood friend who have become hated rivals throughout the ordeal in their present mood of self-pity and injured self-regard. Lysander and Demetrius now have been confronted by turning on one another for characteristically aggressive male ways. The four lovers then rhythematically discuss openly in verse about how Hermia’s father refuses to allow Lysander to marry his daughter. Hermia’s father feels that Lysander is not royal worthy of Hermia. Lysander disagrees with Egeus and Helena having being rejected by Demetrius can only suppose that she is going to be made fun of by Demetrius. Hermia begins to make Helena feel doubtful; she begins to think...
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...Pyramus and Thisbe A very touching love story that is sure to move anyone who reads it is that of Pyramus and Thisbe. Theirs was a selfless love and they made sure that even in death, they were together. The tale has its origins in the Roman Mythology. It is best recounted by Ovid and the passion of love that blossomed between the two young lovers enthralls readers even today. Pyramus was the most handsome man and was a childhood friend of Thisbe, the fairest maiden in Babylonia. Pyramus and Thisbe were neighbors. They both lived in neighboring homes and fell in love with each other as they grew up together. However, their parents were dead against them marrying each other. Their parents were totally against their union, leaving the young lovers with no option but burn the light of love brightly in their hearts and meet surreptitiously if they can. Over the years, the lovers could only talk through a hole in their wall because their parents refused them to see each other. Finally, Pyramus got fed up with his parents and so did Thisbe. One day while whispering through a crack in the wall, they decided to meet the next night under a mulberry tree near tomb of Ninus. They decided to elope then. So, the next night, just before the crack of dawn, while everyone was asleep, they decided to slip out of their homes and meet in the nearby fields near a mulberry tree. Thisbe reached there first, covered with a cloak. As she waited under the tree, she saw a lioness coming near...
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...apace. Four happy days bring inAnother moon. But oh, methinks how slowThis old moon wanes! She lingers my desires,Like to a stepdame or a dowagerLong withering out a young man’s revenue. | THESEUSOur wedding day is almost here, my beautiful Hippolyta. We’ll be getting married in four days, on the day of the new moon. But it seems to me that the days are passing too slowly—the old moon is taking too long to fade away! That old, slow moon is keeping me from getting what I want, just like an old widow makes her stepson wait to get his inheritance. | 10 | HIPPOLYTAFour days will quickly steep themselves in night.Four nights will quickly dream away the time.And then the moon, like to a silver bowNew bent in heaven, shall behold the nightOf our solemnities. | HIPPOLYTANo, you’ll see, four days will quickly turn into four nights. And since we dream at night, time passes quickly then. Finally the new moon, curved like a silver bow in the sky, will look down on our wedding celebration. | 15 | THESEUS Go, Philostrate,Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments.Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth.Turn melancholy forth to funerals.The pale companion is not for our pomp. | THESEUSGo, Philostrate, get the young people of Athens ready to celebrate and have a good time. Sadness is only appropriate for funerals. We don’t want it at our festivities. | | Exit PHILOSTRATE | PHILOSTRATE exits. | | Hippolyta, I wooed thee with my swordAnd won thy love doing thee injuries.But...
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...The theme of love in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ The theme of love is crucial in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ as the plot revolves around love. Without love there would not be any lovers for the play to be based on. I feel that love in the play is personified and has two personalities, comforting and cruel- comforting within civilisation, but cruel within the woods where characters are insecure. The woods have a very negative effect on the lovers and love plays with this insecurity. The magic juice represents mischief but its ultimate affect is love. When the men’s love interests’ change, the women don’t accept it, instead it throws them into a frenzy of questions and confusion and so something that should be unexpected but amazing for Helena, instead is a nightmare as she thinks she is being mocked. “O spite! O Hell! I see you all are bent to set against me for your merriment” (3, 2,145-146). This shows Helena’s frustration and how even though all she longs for is love, the woods can still change her perception of it. Love seems to consume the lovers, and makes them lose their rational mind. As Freud said “you are always mad when you are in love” and this is strongly shown in the play as love seems to rule the lovers heads and leads to mad decisions. For instance Helena has a perfect opportunity as Hermia is planning to elope with Lysander, leaving Demetrius for her. However her insane love for Demetrius means that she acts entirely irrationally by telling Demetrius “of fair...
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...Name: Instructor: Course: Date: A Midsummer Night's Dream (Love & Madness) The theme of love has always been the main subject when it comes to Shakespeare. The play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is no exception. The multiple love triangles in this play have enhanced the manner in which the theme of love can be perceived in this case. Love has been presented as a form of insanity where people opt to do crazy things all in the name of love. The characters in the play are involved in different acts of love that portray the idea of madness. As a result of this, love has been shown as a form of madness brought about by the actions of those in love. A quote from the play states “Lovers and madmen have such seething brains; such shaping fantasies, that apprehend more than cool reason ever comprehends.” This goes to prove the insanity evident in love. This argument brings about a different comprehension to the works of Shakespeare. This is evident from the notion of insanity applied to the interpretation of love; thus making love to look like something different other than the desire and passion intended by the author. While the story revolves around love, we are introduced to different acts of love that the different characters are involved in. The major story of love is portrayed by Theseus and Hyppolita. The different love triangles among the other characters such as Hermia, Helena, Lysander and Demetrius also portray the notion that love has been represented as a form...
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...Olivia Smith Pd 4 MSND A In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, mistaken identities cause an uproar of emotional mix-ups. The background of the play is a simple love "square" involving four people.: Hermia loves Lysander and Lysander loves Hermia, but Demetrious also loves her, and Helena loves Demetrious. Hermia and Demetrious are engaged to marry against Hermia's will. They all end up running off into the wood on a magic spring evening when fairies turn everything upside down. While they are asleep, Puck squeezes the juice from a magic flower that makes whomever's eye it enters to fall in love with the first person they see. He puts it onto Lysander's eye, thinking he was Demetrius. This begins the game of mistaken identities, because Helena is the first person Lysander sees, which causes him to fall in love with her instead of Hermia. So now, Lysander loves Helena, Helena loves Demetrius, Demetrius loves Hermia and Hermia loves Lysander. The confusion increases. Every encounter the couples have gets more confusing and exasperating. Then Puck realizes his mistake and puts the flower juice on Demetrius' eyes, making him fall in love with Helena as well. Helena, whose love towards Demetrius has been in vain, thinks that Lysander and Demetrius are mocking her, because they are both, suddenly, mysteriously in love with her. Her exasperation is ironic, because now she has too much love instead of too little. Her anger and verbal abuse of the lovers and of Hermia, whom she suspects...
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...and A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare are highly evocative pieces of theatre that have transcended the category of brilliance and have had a profound effect on the course of Western literature and culture. Both plays explore a broad range of themes, from the supernatural to comments on the power of religion in society. However, I have chosen to explore the ways in which they portray the theme of gender. Firstly I will examine the issues regarding gender in A Midsummer Night’s Dream in particular the oppression of the female characters. I will explore Shakespeare’s portrayal of Titania and Hermia and his ability to disguise the deeper feminist consciousness that is at work. I will then look at the way in which gender is presented in Miller’s The Crucible, ranging from the heroic depiction of John Proctor to the oppositional presentations of Abigail and Elizabeth. William Shakespeare is a famously suggestive author in terms of highlighting issues regarding gender ideology. Although in some works, such as Othello, he reflects and arguably supports the stereotyping of men and women, he is also seen to challenge such representations. A Midsummer Night’s Dream dramatizes tensions between genders, from a young woman quarrelling with her father for the right to choose her own husband, to Theseus marrying Hippolyta whom he conquered through violence and even a bitter battle between Oberon and Titania which affects the order of the natural world. A Midsummer Night’s Dream...
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...Reflections on A Midsummer Night’s Dream For most people the word 'Love' brings upon strong emotions to our minds. For Shakespeare's story “ A Midsummer Night's Dream” love is a strong ongoing theme. In which 2 young men and 2 young women will go to any extent for love. Often getting in sticky, confusing situations. Mainly being the fact that; Hermia loves Lysander and Lysander loves Hermia. While Helena loves Demetrius, however, Demetrius loves Hermia. To quote Lysander: “The course of true love never did run smooth,” (I.i.134) In many ways the strong emotion of love drives this hectic story. In the story Hermia is the princess of the kingdom. She loves lysander, yet she is forbidden to marry him by her father, Egeus. “Full of vexation come I, with complaint Against my child, my daughter Hermia.Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord,This man hath my consent to marry her. Stand forth, Lysander: and my gracious duke, This man hath bewitch'd the bosom of my child;Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,And interchanged love-tokens with my child:Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung,With feigning voice verses of feigning love,And stolen the impression of her fantasy With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits,Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats, messengers. Of strong prevailment in unharden'd youth:With cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's heart, Turn'd her obedience, which is due to me,To stubborn harshness: and, my gracious duke,Be it so she; will...
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...Shakespeare’s use of comedy in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” Shakespeare creates comedy in his play “A Midsummer Night’s dream” through the different scenarios in the play that take place which all have at least an element of humour. He creates comedy in a number of ways and it makes the play humorous as a whole. However he uses dark comedy in several scenes of the play. Through the lovers; Hermia, Lysander, Helena and Demetrius, we see humour in the way they have love triangles. The fact that Hermia and Lysander are in love, but Demetrius chases after Hermia and Helena chases after Demetrius is humorous itself. Shakespeare’s use of comedy in the love triangles is a form of comical relief to a certain extent. This is because as tension builds up between the lovers, in act 3 scene 2 both Lysander and Demetrius fall in love with Helena because of the “Love in idleness”, which ends up in a big argument with Hermia. The fact that each character does not know why the males suddenly love Helena makes the scene, which is supposed to be serious, humorous. Shakespeare uses dark humour, however, because it is meant to be a sad and confusing experience for Hermia and Helena, though it is fiendishly comical. Furthermore, Shakespeare’s use of comedy between the lovers is not over done, like the mechanicals. The fact that both Lysander and Demetrius loved Hermia before the fairies interfered with the love triangles, shows more of the dark humour. Lysander used to think of Hermia as his “gentle...
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...Gender Politics The men of Elizabethan England had all the authority, they were the head of the family, and were expected to be obeyed. They are the most dominant gender which leaves women powerless with no control over anything. Who they spend the rest of their life with they do not get to choose. They have not the power to be responsible for their own happiness. Women are expected to be submissive because then, they were thought to be the weaker gender. When women get married, they are their husband’s property and before they get married, they are their father’s. Just as Egeus says that “she (Hermia) is mine (his) and I (he) may dispose of her”. Women are thus perceived as a possession rather than an individual with free will. This could be further justified by the fact that queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta is conquered in a war in which Theseus, duke of Athens, wins. Hippolyta is obligated to marry Theseus as a result of her loss in the battle. She is now owned by a man that she might not even love. Here, she is viewed as merely an object to be rewarded to Theseus. Another example is when Titania refuses to hand over the Indian boy to Oberon, Oberon is not satisfied. He wonders “why should Titania cross her Oberon”, giving an immediate implication that Titania should obey him if she does not wish to cross him. Again, this contributes to the point where women should be submissive and obey men. He puts a silly trick on Titania that got her to fall in love with an...
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...They all presumptuously belittle the imaginative capacity of their audience, assuming that their viewers will not be able to distinguish between a real lion and a stage lion or the fact that the “moon” is merely being played by a man. Bottom says, “a lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing. For there is not a more fearful wildfowl than your lion living”, which incorrectly implies that Snug’s acting is so impressive the ladies in the audience will be scared of his lion (Act 3, Scene 1, lines 28-30). Furthermore, Snout then says, “Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion” (lines 32-33). All of these prologues are completely unnecessary, and any audience of A Midsummer Night’s Dream does not have to wait for the players to be humbled; the foolishness of these actors is in itself a punishment. The actors make themselves look ridiculous, completely missing the fact that theater naturally hinges on imagination, and their audience automatically proves their capacity for imaginative leaps by even momentarily accepting lowly workers as lovers or nobility. This is an example of Shakespeare’s use of simple conflict and resolution to prove a point. Clearly, the audience’s imagination directly contradicts the players’ pride; once again, the power of imagination makes the arrogant look...
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...In the book, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, it centers its story about a complicated love web. In the end of the story, there will be a wedding for one of the couples, where there will be a play. Throughout the story, a couple of trade’s people practice for this play. In the fairy side of the story, there is some trouble in the royal couple relationship. This story focuses on the weird occurrences that will occur in the days before the wedding. Shakespeare uses several different relationships in A Midsummer Night’s Dream to the real nature of romantic love. Two relationships in, particular, Helena and Demetrius and Titania and Bottom illustrate that love is toxic and misleading. To begin, Helena and Demetrius were a clear example of how...
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