A Midsummer Night 's Dream By William Shakespeare

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,

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

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.

William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream weaves stories of social ranks in the commedia dell’arte and some of its easily recognized stock characters. Shakespeare uses commedia dell’arte characters in A Midsummer Night’s Dream to capture our imagination and amuse us.

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.

Throughout time arranged marriages were the norm in several societies. In the comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, Hermia is in love with Lysander, but her father wants her to marry Demetrius. She escapes into the woods with Lysander. Just like Hermia, many people around the world are forced to marry someone that their parents choose for them. Love marriage vs. Arranged marriage is always a debated topic. While there are instances of love marriages working out, there are arranged marriages which are successful too. Both have their pros and cons. And it is just the world around us which makes us support or be against a love marriage. Arranged marriages are based on the understanding of two families. The parents of the bride or groom get to pick their future partner. On the other hand, love marriages are more of an independent choice between the bride and groom. Giving them the freedom to marry someone they know and admire. There are different customs and traditions that are followed in different societal set-ups. Arrange marriages lack love and respect between husband and wife. Arranged marriages are a social injustice. They deprive individuals of their choice. Marriage is a commitment of two people who have made a vow to love each other till death. In the essay I will be debating the pro’s and con’s of arranged and love marriages.

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.

Written during the Elizabethan era where gender roles played an important part in society and relationships, A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare portrays the interaction between both sexes, and the women’s response to the expectation of such norms. Although the characters: Hippolyta, Hermia, Helena, and Titania, are portrayed as objects (both sexual and material) contingent upon their male lovers, they are also given empowerment.

Love and reason will never fit together. Nor will love ever be a controllable compulsion. Maybe we are fools for going into the perilous, eccentric universe of love; yet what fun would life be without it? William Shakespeare 's play A Midsummer Night 's Dream investigates the unconventional, unreasonable and unpredictable nature of love during his time. Shakespeare conveys this through the main plot of the play, which is composed of the relationships between three couples. The three couples show examples of three different types of love; Hermia and Lysander’s true love, the unrequited love of Helena for Demetrius and the red hot relations of Oberon and Titania which all give an insight into the nature of love during Shakespeare’s time.

Symbols help to play an important part in giving a deeper meaning to a story. William Shakespeare uses a variety of symbols in his play A Midsummer Night’s Dream and by using these symbols he offers some insight onto why certain events take place in the play. Symbols are sometimes hard to decipher but as the reader continues to read the symbol’s meaning might become more clear. Shakespeare uses a variety of symbols in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but this paper will only discuss four of the major symbols.

What types of dream really impress you in your life? Would that be funny dreams, weird dreams, scary dreams, risque dreams, dramatic dreams, life-changing dreams, and even lucid dream stories. As a matter of fact, people’s dreams can be a kind of illusion because dreams skew their daily life into confusion—people cannot recognize reality and unreality easily. Similarly, love not only is imaginative, but also can make people get confused just like dream.

The Riverside Shakespeare’s section on A Midsummer Night’s Dream, probably one of the best-known works of Shakespeare himself, goes further still to enhance one’s own understanding of even a time-honored tale such as this. The introduction, despite containing no visuals, is still largely effective in its comprehensive presentation of such a wide range of fascinating topics. These include the progression of Shakespeare’s own comic form, the madcap and complex interweaving of different story threads contained therein, and even some deeper level thematic analysis. This arguably provides just enough for beginners to build a foundational understanding themselves, while those who are perhaps more experienced may reconsider some of their own thoughts

There are many characters in a “Midsummers Nights Dream” that could stand out, as the main character, Lysander, however is definitely one of these main characters in the play. Lysander is a lover and is a part of the group of four that focus on their issues with love in this play. Lysander indefinitely relates to the theme of loves difficulty and the nature of romantic love. Although besides the themes of the play being important to understanding Lysander’s character, the way he is portrayed, via. Movie and play matter just as much. Shakespeare has a specific intention for the portrayal of Lysander’s character; there are two movie versions of this play that both have their own portrayal of Lysander. The question that arises from these two different portrayals of Lysander’s character is; how do they relate to Shakespeare’s idea of how Lysander should be portrayed in the play? Is he portrayed correctly? Is the portrayal effective?

Our group focused on a chapter from Shakespeare’s Festive Comedy, “May Games and Metamorphoses on a Midsummer Night” by Barber, C.L. From this section of the book, it gave me a new insight regarding to Shakespeare’s play The Midsummer 's Night Dream. Barber did a great job in his explanation on the romance part of the play and also on the metamorphoses part, however he was unorganized and the methods he used to explain his ideas were confusing.

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.