A Midsummer Night's Dream Research Paper

In the comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the plethora of comedic styles used by Shakespeare illustrate his intention to poke fun at love throughout the play. The play is notorious for its intricate and irrational plotline, mainly due to the constantly shifting love triangles. Once the powerful fairies become involved with the fate of the naive lovers – Demetrius, Helena, Lysander and Hermia – matters are further complicated. The complication inflicted by the fairies is credited to the powerful love potion that Oberon, King of the Fairies, hands over to Puck, a mischievous fairy, to use on his wife Titania, with intentions to embarrass and distract her. This spiteful attitude is due to Oberon and Titania’s argument over the custody of an

“O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence! Love takes the meaning in love's conference.” Lysander's quote, “The course of true love never did run smooth,” is proven throughout the play as three couples face challenges and hardships as time goes on, that no love is easy and that anyone would do anything they can to keep the love they have. In “A Midsummer Night's Dream,” there are many examples of rough love, as seen with Hermia and Lysander when Lysander stops loving Hermia, when Helena love Demetrius but he does not love her back and with Titania and Oberon, as they argue over the changeling boy.

     In the movie version of A Midsummer Nights Dream, Puck has a more overt sense of humor. Although the dialogue is purely Shakespeare, the actions and direction of Puck’s character bring a new perspective to the story. When we are first introduced to Puck in the tree, he plays some jokes, such as vanishing, and turning up in a goblet of wine. He is speaking the same lines as in the play, but the addition of visual humor adds to the appeal of the original play. One is again exposed to this when Oberon and Puck discuss the flower while lying in the forest. Puck imitates Oberon’s position, adjusting himself in a friendly mocking manner towards his master. One also gets the impression from Puck’s body language that, although he

In Act lll, scene II, Oberon found that Puck had utilized the potion on the wrong Athenian, Lysander. Puck could be viewed as more essential

Earning Love Fairies, flowers, and love are three very crucial elements of the classic book, A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare. This classic tells the story of Hermia, Helena, Demetrius and Lysander, and their journey through the forest one fateful summer night. Lysander is one of the main characters, and has a lot of influence over the book. Lysander thinks of love as something you earn, not give away, and this is shown by his love for Hermia, his sudden love for Helena, and him once again loving Hermia. When we first meet Lysander, he is following after Hermia and her father, Egeus, trying to get his approval to marry Hermia.

What is true love? What is fake love? How can we tell the difference? William Shakespeare, in Midsummer Night's Dream demonstrates how fake love crumbles and how true love perseveres. New relationships can be easily broken if they are fake.

In William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream , Shakespeare describes a love story between a few characters throughout the play. These individuals face obstacles, from fairies to fathers on their path to find love. In addition, there are many interpersonal conflicts that are caused by love.

In the play ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ written by William Shakespeare, an important event is when Egeus goes to Duke Theseus to force his daughter, Hermia, to marry a man whom she does not love, Demetrius. This event helps readers understand the idea of expectations of women during the patriarchal society.

After observing the senseless behavior of the Athenian lovers, Puck exclaims to Oberon, “Lord, what fools these mortals be” (III.ii.115)! This line, aimed at Lysander’s foolish behavior is meant to be humorous, but it also cleverly addresses the prominent theme of the story: that love is not under human control. Puck is clearly referring to the foolishness and exaggerated emotions of the four lovers in the play; however, Shakespeare also intends to target the audience members by emphasizing that humans in general have the tendency to do and say crazy things because of love’s powerful grasp on their emotions. Therefore, a character such as Puck, according to Robert Diyanni, “may remind us in some ways of ourselves; they may appeal to us because they differ from us” (Diyanni 1270). Although the Athenian lovers neglect to realize the extent of their ludicrous behavior, their unbalanced emotions are very noticeable to the fairies, who replace the audience’s role in this scene. Moreover, it signifies the contrast between both the human lovers, who become so entangled in a disarray of emotion, and the enchanting fairies, always playful and rascally in

The themes of this play are mostly to do with love and magic however the play as a whole is a comedy. The magic scene is the scene that brings the whole play together. Without it the lovers would not be called lovers and there wouldn’t be a marriage. Before puck put the love potion on them Lysander was in love with Hermia but her dad wanted her to marry Demetrius; and Helena was in love with Demetrius on the other hand Demetrius was not in love with either of them. Puck sorted things out by putting a love potion on Demetrius so that he falls in love with Helena. The funny part about it all is when they are all confused when they awake from what they think is a dream which is a dramatic irony because we know it wasn’t a dream but in fact a reality.

First, Shakespeare generates comic effect within the play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by the situations that he places the characters in. For one example, the characters Demetrius, Helena, Hermia and Lysander get involved in a love triangle mix up. Hermia and Lysander love each other while Demetrius wishes to be married to Hermia, leaving Helena chasing after Demetrius, someone that does not acknowledge that she even exists. Oberon the King of the fairies suggests to Puck a way to help their situation by rubbing the love potion from a flower struck by Cupids arrow into Demetrius’ eyes so that way he could fall in love with Helena. Unfortunately, Puck makes the mistake of rubbing the potion in Lysander’s eyes and Helena is the first person he

A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare uses different types of characters to portray different kinds of love. Lysander and Helena, the young lovers, and Oberon and Titania, the Fairy King and Queen, have different definitions of love in their relationship. Lysander and Helena have a pure, matter-of-fact connection. They are in love by default, simply because that is ingrained into their characters. Oberon and Titania, however, have a relationship built more on the basis of control. They play games with each other, trying to get the upper hand in the relationship. In the end, one being in control is more attractive to Oberon than the actual connection between the people in the relationship. This is what draws him to Helena, who possesses a naive and superficial love for Demetrius. Helena is more obsessed with Demetrius than truly in love with him, as there does not seem to be much basis for her infatuation. In the process of loving Demetrius, she deprecates her own character. Oberon appreciates the devotion Helena has for Demetrius and wishes Titania had her qualities, so he pities her, and assists with her conquest of Demetrius. However, his process takes Demetrius’s will away, much like how Oberon sought to humiliate Titania. Although the happy ending is with Helena and Demetrius together, their relationship is more similar to that of Bottom and Titania than Hermia and Lysander, which is what the audience is supposed to infer by their placement in the story.

Puck’s role in the play is that of a supernatural creature that answers to the King Oberon. King Oberon and Queen Titania are the leaders of the fairies, goblins, and elf’s. The king, queen, and fairies typically want to bring happiness and love to the mortals. However, this one goblin called ‘Puck’ is a prankster, one that loves to wreak havoc in his mischievous ways onto mortals. Because of Puck’s mischief, he accidently makes two men, Lysander and Demetrius, fall in love with the same women, Helena, who only returns Demetrius’ love. While this plot takes place Puck, unbeknownst the king for the moment, enjoys watching the love triangle of chaos unfold before his very eyes.

In the comedic romantic play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare, four plebeians are fighting for fate and destiny in the city of Athens, Greece. Hermia, a strong willed young lady, defies her father’s orders to marry Demetrius, another Athenian man, and subsequently runs off to the woods to marry Lysander. However, when the lovers, Hermia and Lysander, run off, their plans are disrupted when they are told on by Helena, Demetrius's obsessive lover. At this moment, Lysander, after learning about the others disrupting their plans to elope, says “the course of true love never did run smooth” (28) Later, when the love potion is placed onto the lovers by Puck, the well known trickster, and the other fairies such as Oberon

Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is often read as a dramatization of the incompatibility of “reason and love” (III.i. 127), yet many critics pay little attention to how Shakespeare manages to draw his audience into meditating on these notions independently (Burke 116). The play is as much about the conflict between passion and reason concerning love, as it is a warning against attempting to understand love rationally. Similarly, trying to understand the play by reason alone results in an impoverished reading of the play as a whole – it is much better suited to the kind of emotive, arbitrary understanding that is characteristic of dreams. Puck apologises directly to us, the audience,