Dreams And Illusions In A Midsummer Night's Dream

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.

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare makes heavy use of hyperbole, the twisting of reality into something greater than what it actually is, in both the dialogue and the ridiculous, larger-than-life nature of the situations that occur to provide a basis for the conflict between reality and illusion, blurring the line that separates the two concepts.

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.

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare easily blurs the lines of reality by inviting the audience into a dream. He seamlessly toys with the boundaries between fantasy and reality. Among the patterns within the play, one is controlled and ordered by a series of contrasts: the conflict of the sleeping and waking states, the interchange of reality and illusion, and the mirrored worlds of Fairy and Human. A Midsummer Night's Dream gives us insight into man's conflict with characteristics of human behavior.

In many of Shakespeare’s literary works one can find multiple themes that reflect or question our reality. He accomplishes this by using figurative language such as metaphors and similes. Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream encompasses many themes and apply them to certain characters or through communication between multiple characters. Helena portrays themes of love, betrayal, jealousy, and gender norms in Midsummer Night’s Dream presenting them through her speech and behavior. She depicts the challenges of a woman and also the flaws of human nature. In Act 2 scene 1 and Act 3 scene 2 Helena uses a metaphor twice which emulates these themes presenting us a broader understanding of her representation within the play and the play as a whole. Following are lines from Helena.

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,

William Shakespeare starts with a seemingly unresolvable conflict in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The main characters are lovers who are either unrequited in their love or hassled by the love of another. These lovers are inevitably paired. How does Shakespeare make this happen? He creates many subplots that, before long, are all snarled up into a chaotic knot. So, what actions does Shakespeare take to resolve these new quandaries? He ends up trusting a single key entity with his comedy. It’s only then that he introduces a special character into his world: a mischievous fairy whom is known by the name of Puck. Puck is the catalyst for all these subplots and, indeed, for the entirety of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Try to take Puck

In William Shakespeare’s book, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, magic is a powerful and useful tool for the characters that have the capability to use it. Some of the characters abuse the power of magic, while others are more responsible in how they use it. Oberon is one the characters that abuses the power of magic. Oberon’s magic has an immense impact on the plot of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. More specifically, Oberon’s magic affects his own life, the lives of other characters, and all the characters in the story experience his magic differently. We will see that even the person who has power to use the magic can become surprised by it. Magic, the ultimate supernatural power, is often unpredictable and inexplicable.

Throughout literary history, different themes have proven to be consistently popular for audiences. The desire to present an accurate reflection of reality has proven to be a major source of inspiration for both authors and readers alike. Reality as a theme is prevalent in literature, and the numerous ways that reality and illusion intertwine. In William Shakespeare’s play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the illusory world which the characters inhabit is enhanced by the supernatural. The relationship between Oberon and Titania contributes to the development of the play’s theme of reality and illusion; they are the catalyst by which the play’s action occurs, and their spontaneous natures are countered with human flaws, further

Attempting to seek freedom from the shackles of Athenian society, reflecting among the segregation lifestyle a woman carries in Athens leads to Hermia’s decision to run away with Lysander in the search for sealing their love on Mayday;backlashes against her will as a result of puck’s confusion to Oberon's orders towards the use of the flower of love. Puck’s mistake reflects greatly on the actions of the protagonist showing their deception of reality versus illusion as they scavenge through the forest learning reality while waking up to what feels like an illusion.

Perception v.s Reality In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, perception versus reality becomes a major aspect of the play because the contrast of the woods versus the city and love versus infatuation. In the woods there is much deception from the characters and fairies to make the lovers perceive love for each other which is actually just infatuation. The city is full of chaos and people telling each other what they need to do, but in the city the lovers still had some sort of control over their themselves. Egeus is trying to force his daughter into loving someone she does not love.

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.

Oprah Winfrey once said, “The best thing about dreams is that fleeting moment, when you are between asleep and awake, when you don't know the difference between reality and fantasy, when for just that one moment you feel with your entire soul that the dream is reality, and it really happened.” But, what actually is a dream and what do dreams really have to do with one’s everyday life? In essence, a dream is a series of mental images and emotions occurring during slumber. Dreams can also deal with one’s personal aspirations, goals, ambitions, and even one’s emotions, such as love and hardship. However, dreams can also give rise to uneasy and terrible emotions; these dreams are essentially known as nightmares. In today’s society, the concept

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

Mandy Conway Mrs. Guynes English 12 16 March 2000 A Critical Analysis of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" William Shakespeare, born in 1594, is one of the greatest writers in literature. He dies in 1616 after completing many sonnets and plays. One of which is "A Midsummer Night's Dream." They say that this play is the most purely romantic of Shakespeare's comedies. The themes of the play are dreams and reality, love and magic. This extraordinary play is a play-with-in-a-play, which master writers only write successfully. Shakespeare proves here to be a master writer. Critics find it a task to explain the intricateness of the play, audiences find it very pleasing to read and watch. "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is a