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Fairies In A Midsummer Night's Dream

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Just as A Midsummer Night’s Dream could have easily ended in tragedy, Romeo and Juliet held the promise of a comedy until the point of collision. Romeo and Juliet promised their love to one another in secrecy, with the help of the Nurse and Friar, and united their love in procreation. However, fate was not working towards the benefit of the two lovers. More precisely, the battle between the Montagues and Capulets embodies the possible ending likely for A Midsummer Night’s Dream if Lysander and Demetrius had fought. Without the supernatural intervention of the fairies to interrupt their duel and prevent bloodshed, the play could have easily ended in death just as Romeo and Juliet. In preventing the duel, the fairies were able to tip the scales …show more content…

Heyworth describes that the “staggered time disrupts logical sequence,” (11). By this logic, just as Hermia and Lysander made illogical assumptions that lead to rash actions, Juliet and Romeo were faced with the same problem. However, as opposed to A Midsummer Night’s Dream where the pandemonium is eventually lifted, the play is emerged further into utter confusion with each passing moment: until eventually the two lovers take their lives. Shakespeare shows just how time can be used in a comedic way in the progression of A Midsummer Night’s Dream as it hastily followed the actions of Hermia as her marriage was arranged, the escape with her lover into the fairy realm in an attempt to alter their lives, the events that transpired within the green world, and eventually ended with the resolution. Here time adds to the humor since the young lovers are quickly making choices and continue to bicker with one another. Yet Shakespeare shows just how destructive time can become when used to create a tragic …show more content…

Targoff states that Shakespeare, “intensifies the already powerful sense in the play that love has no meaningful posthumous future” (33). More exactly, when the lovers die there is no exchange of prayers or promises to meet again in the afterlife. In fact, Targoff argues that in this moment “Juliet longs for death itself,” (33) and that her last words are not a romantic stream of conscious confessions to her deceased love, but rather to the knife that will end her

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