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Hermia's Dream

Decent Essays

With regards to William Shakespeare’s comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the theme of love plays a central role throughout the play. When separating the play into its separate worlds being: the social world and the green/comic world, the norms regarding love differs from one world to the next. With reference to the given extract of Lysander and Hermia in the comic world, certain threatening forces within the comic world surface to interfere with plot as well as the way in which these dark forces are driven out in order for the play to remain comedic instead of tragic. The world in which the lovers plot is predominantly set is in the comic world, where the comedic element of the play is brought to life. The comic world (also referred to as …show more content…

Ay me, for pity! – What a dream was here!” (Shakespeare 177). Hermia’s dream, the night the literary device being the love potion, worked on Lysander, is the night Hermia has a nightmare where, “Lysander has presented Hermia with the problem of his sexual desire, [where] her dream enacts her anxiety about it” (Introduction 13), “but, gentle friend, for love and courtesy, lie further off, in human modesty” (Shakespeare 173). Lysander’s sexual desires towards Hermia causes friction between the lovers, a force threatening the comic world. Hermia’s dream too represents an, “inner experience … reflecting the action that takes place during her sleep” (Introduction …show more content…

Although, due to, “the overruling figures of Theseus [the Duke] and Oberon [the king of the fairies]”, the initial tragic element is discarded (Calderwood). In accordance to Alexander Leggatt (Leggatt), a Shakespearean comedy is formulated in such a way that, “conventions like mistaken identity, rival wooers, and parents whom appose love-matches”, as well as the play, “formulated in dealing with the familiar”, allows for the play to be relatable and therefore

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