Destabilizing the Social Norms Between Men and Women in A Midsummer Night's Dream

Society needs order because it is the keystone that keeps modern civilization from collapsing in on itself. Once removed, society succumbs to its most basic state: emotions. Pure, raw emotions fill the void where logic once dictated and the world falls into chaos. It is this very situation where Shakespeare drew his inspiration for his play, A Midsummer’s Night Dream. In a world with four lovers, hoodwinked by the lord of the fairies and his loyal servant Robin, disorder ensnares the human race and chaos ensues. Through the use of prosody, Shakespeare was able to juxtapose the Athenian nobles, the working class, and the fairy world to create a sense of disarray that demonstrated the human need for order.

If there was no such thing as sympathy, empathy, or love in our world, it would be a hard place to live. If there was no hard law or reason in our world, it would be a crazy place to live. Neither of these worlds would be anybody’s first choice as a home - it's just common sense take away either of these two fundamental aspects of life, and everything is immediately chaos. In fact, it is only in a world such as ours, where legal and human emotion work together, that we are happy. In William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare recognizes this truth and uses the two settings to represent the city of Athens as law, order, civility, and judgment, while the woods represent chaos, incivility, dreams, and love.

Fairies, mortals, magic, love, and hate all intertwine to make A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare a very enchanting tale, that takes the reader on a truly dream-like adventure. The action takes place in Athens, Greece in ancient times, but has the atmosphere of a land of fantasy and illusion which could be anywhere. The mischievousness and the emotions exhibited by characters in the play, along with their attempts to double-cross destiny, not only make the tale entertaining, but also help solidify one of the play’s major themes; that true love and it’s cleverly disguised counterparts can drive beings to do seemingly irrational things.

These words and the entire alliance between Demetrius and Helena have the subtext of a sexually sadistic and masochistic relationship (Greene et al. 151). This correlation leaves little in Helena to be admired by feminist critics. Her only intelligent scene in the play spawns from her discovery of the Athenian lads' infatuation with her as she screams, "Can you not hate me, as I know you do/ But you must join in souls to mock me too?" (III.ii.149-150).

Throughout the play, A Midsummer Night’s dream, by the well-known playwriter, William Shakespeare, provided that the antagonist, Oberon, the King of fairies, is the root of all the problems. Despite this, we can look at the novel in a different way. To give an illustration, take the case when Oberon orders Puck to get the enchanted flower and pours its juice on Titania’s eyes, or when after overhearing on Helena and Demetrius argument, he orders Puck to pour the rest of its juice on Demetrius so he can fall in love with Helena and when Oberon realizes Puck puts the juice on the wrong person’s eyes.of this, the four lovers start to fight due to him being self-centered. Above all, in the novel Oberon is the root of all problems in A Midsummer’s Night Dream

“Beware of your stereotypes and prejudices, they can trap you in a box and make you miss what life has to offer you”─Med Yones. One has to see past the stereotypes in life, just as one should do for A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare. This literature masterpiece entails a quarrel of a pair of lovers caught entangled in a treacherous web of tainted love and magic. This comedy, viewed through the archetypal literary criticism lens─which focuses on the stereotypical aspects─, makes the audience wonder and push beyond the boundaries of the stereotypes with the tale. Combined with its other elements, A Midsummer Night's Dream is more entertaining and meaningful when viewed through the archetypal literary criticism lens; such as in Act 1: scene 1; Act 3: scene 2; and Act 5: scene 1 in both the printed text and the 1999 film versions.

The above shows that Titania and Oberon share a relationship that is inseparable. They swallow their pride and come back together, planning to even bless the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta even though those were the other two in the affairs. Hippolyta proceeds to call Oberon ‘my Lord’ and Oberon calls Hippolyta ‘my Queen’. This shows that their love is still prevalent. ‘True love’ is the baseline in the play and is the primary form of love.

The fairy king and queen live in a type of parallel universe to their human counterparts. The forest that they live in represents a break from reality, or at least the reality initially presented. Despite their supernatural abilities, Oberon and Titania endure arguments like any couple, which instantly creates a blurring of reality and fantasy in the play. It is from an argument regarding the young Indian prince that propels Oberon to be at odds with his wife, which compels him to create chaos through magic. He is driven by the love for his wife, and love is also a prevalent theme throughout the play. It is love that drives all the characters, and not always rationally. As Robert Dent writes in his article, “Imagination in A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, “love sees with that part of the mind that has no taste of judgment (177)”, which is clearly displayed by the couples in the play. Interestingly, the blurring of reality and illusion originates with a lover’s spat, highlighting the impact that love can have on reality.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream takes place in Athens where the the Duke Theseus and the Queen of the Amazons Hippolyta are set to get married. Following this we see the fruition of two more plots of love, Helena, Lysander, Demetrius, and Hermia and the king and queen of the fairies Oberon and Titania. The plot I am going to focus on will be that of the four lovers, the complication and the conflict that they’re love causes. The conflict begins when “Take time to pause, and by the next new moon—the sealing day betwixt my love and me

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play about four Athenian lovers. Theseus listens to both Hermia and her father’s request and he tells her to bend to her father’s will or die due to the old Athenian law. Hermia and Lysander flee Athens, into the domain of the fairy kingdom. At this time, Oberon is in a fight with Titania. This fight is over a human child of Titania’s friend. Oberon tells Puck, one of his loyal servants, to get a flower hit by Cupid’s arrow, and drop the oil into Demetrius’s and Titania’s eyes. However, Puck drops the oil into Lysander’s eyes due to Oberon’s vague description, making him fall in love with Helena and despise Hermia. Titania falls in love Bottom, who has the head of an ass, after Oberon places the oil

Oberon demands, “How can you stand there shamelessly talking about me and Hippolyta, when you know that I know about your love for Theseus? And weren’t you the one who made him cheat on all of his other girlfriends, like Aegles, Ariadne, and Antiopa? (Shakespeare II.ii.76).

Shakespeare may be the most known playwright of all time, however, you may be surprised at how many unfair stereotypes this very famous writer incorporated into his plays. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a comedy play written by William Shakespeare in the late 1500s that portrays events surrounding the marriage of Theseus, the Duke of Athens, to the extravagant Hippolyta, the former queen of the Amazons. Such events included Demetrius jilting Helena at the altar and falling in love with Helena’s rival instead, Hermia. However, Hermia is in love with Lysander, not a disdainful youth known as Demetrius. According to feminist theory, the theory that focuses on gender inequality. A Midsummer Night’s Dream would not be considered a feminist empowerment play because throughout the play Shakespeare portrays women as timid/easily frightened. He shows men having more power than women, and perpetuates the unfair stereotype that all women must act a certain way.

A Midsummer Night 's Dream is a play about love. All of its action—from the escapades of Lysander, Demetrius, Hermia, and Helena in the forest, to the argument between Oberon and Titania, to the play about two lovelorn youths that Bottom and his friends perform at Duke Theseus 's marriage to Hippolyta—are motivated by love. But A Midsummer Night 's Dream is not a romance, in which the audience gets caught up in a passionate love affair between two characters. It 's a comedy, and because it 's clear from the outset that it 's a comedy and that all will turn out happily, rather than try to overcome the audience with the exquisite and overwhelming passion of love, A Midsummer Night 's Dream invites the audience to laugh at the way the passion of love can make people blind, foolish, inconstant, and desperate. At various times, the power and passion of love threatens to destroy friendships, turn men against men and women against women, and through

Women have a specific role throughout the Elizabethan society and are known as inferior. In Shakespeare’s play, A Midsummer Nights Dream, women are told how to act by men, that reveals superiority towards men. This is portrayed by the characters-Hermia, Helena, and Titiana throughout the play. These characters were represented as powerless and blind because they fail to receive what they what and are told what to do countless amounts by the men in the play. Women's’ inferiority in the play makes it impossible for them to achieve true happiness attributable to the superiority the men in the play believe they have.

He needs her too, so he wins the boy for himself to make her feel inferior. In other words, Titania gave up something that she loved to make her husband happy. This is seen in everyday life, women give up their wants to make their men happy. Titania's sacrifice for Oberon cost her to lose both her Indian boy and his mother, her women lover. When men don't make women happy, they turn to their friends for what they need, whatever it may be. (Scott 370-373) Male domination not only exists between husband and wife, but also between father and daughter. Theseus will not allow Hermia to marry Lysander. Theseus wants her to marry Demetrius. Egeus, a ruler, will force Hermia to become a nun unless she marries Demetrius. In retaliation to his demands, Lysander and Hermia run away together. Hermia is scolded by Egeus for being in love with the man she chooses. This suggests that men cause women to feel forced and obligated to do as they say. (Scott 373) Another example of male domination is the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. Theseus' first wife was frail and yielding, and he divorced her. Hippolyta has been a warrior, and Theseus' victory over her makes her unable to resist. By conquering the female warrior and marrying her, he fulfills his need for the exclusive love of a woman while satisfying his homoerotic desires. Close bonding fulfills this homoerotic desire with a male companion, such as Demetrius and