Literary Analysis Of A Midsummer Night's Dream

Titania is uncertain whether her vision is a dream or reality, because dreams are soon

Throughout the play A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare uses both fate and free will to present his philosophy towards the nature of love. The characters struggle through confusion and conflicts to be with the one they love. Although the course of their love did not go well, love ultimately triumphs over all at the end of the play. The chaos reaches a climax causing great disruption among the lovers. However, the turmoil is eventually resolved by Puck, who fixes his mistake. The confusion then ends and the lovers are with their true love. Throughout the play Shakespeare's philosophy was displayed in various scenes, and his concept still holds true in modern society.

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.

The story of A Midsummer Night's Dream was mainly about love and its abnormal dealings. In the play, Shakespeare tried to show that love is unpredictable, unreasonable, and at times is blind. The theme of love was constantly used during the play and basically everything that was said and done was related to the concept of love and its unpredictable ness. Shakespeare made all of the characters interact their lives to be based on each other’s. At first, everything was very confusing, and the characters were faced with many different problems. In the end, however, they were still able to persevere and win their true love, the love they were searching for in the first place.

Love is a theme which reoccurs through many of Shakespeare’s Plays. In ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, the theme ‘Love’ is presented from the very beginning in Act 1 Scene 1, through Shakespeare’s use of poetic language, structure and vivid imagery.

Shakespeare uses many different themes to present love; relationships, conflict, magic, dreams and fate. Overall, he presents it as something with the ability to make us act irrationally and foolishly. Within A Midsummer Night's Dream we see many examples of how being 'in love' can cause someone to change their perspective entirely. 'The path of true love never did run smooth' is a comment made from one of the main characters, Lysander, which sums up the play's idea that lovers always face difficult hurdles on the path to happiness and will usually turn them into madmen.

The quotation, pre-reading questions, and vocabulary in the anticipation guide for A Midsummer Night’s Dream paint a certain picture in my mind as to what this play is going to be about. Looking at the vocabulary, most of the words relate to love, authority and formal ceremonies, which may depict that this play is a love story. The quote stated says “The course of love never did run smooth”, this is also evidence that the play might relate to love, but it also states that there might be a conflict between the two romantically influenced characters. One of the pre-reading questions states “A person can be vain and loveable at the same time.” This may point to the main character(s) feelings about another character. They don’t necessarily like

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.

Love is a term used daily in one’s life. Many categorize love in many forms. These forms differ from one-another such as the difference between love for food and love for one’s spouse. However, in the play; “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, love takes different forms than the ones experienced in reality. One can classify the different types of love used in this play into three different categories; true love, love produced by cupid’s flower, and the state of lust.

Love is such an abstract and intangible thing, yet it is something that everyone longs for. In Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the difficulty of love is explored through the obstacles that characters have to face while pursuing their loved ones. Those characters that are in love in the play were conflicted with troubles; however, the obstacles of love do not seem to stop them from being infatuated with each other. The concept of true love is examined throughout this play. By creating obstacles using authority and a higher power, Shakespeare examines the power of love. Through Hermia and Lysander’s loving words, it is reasonable to conclude that love conquers all if you believe in it.

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.

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

What literary criticism lens is most effective in creating meaning and entertainment throughout Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream? The play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, has several characters involved in a love triangle. Many scenes in the story involves power being used or taken away and use of money. Throughout the play, readers and viewers experiences Hermia’s power is being taken away by her father, Eugues,which is her kindred, not letting her marry the man she truly loves,Lysander. Later throughout the story, Robin, character from the story contains a enthrall love juice that has power and makes another character from the story, Titania, fall in love with a donkey.The marxist literary criticism lens is the most effective in creating meaning and entertaining readers and viewers in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

The supernatural world is rather distinct to that of the human world entrenched in societal standards and boundaries. Shakespeare’s play, ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, explores this concept, particularly through the use of Puck. In agreement to Harold Bloom’s statement, the following essay will analyse how Puck is significant because, by being so disparate, he is able to show the limitations of the human. This will be done through, first, exploring a definition of the human in relation to the supernatural. Subsequently, the essay will use a Freudian lense to analyse the morality of Puck and, lastly, the essay will focus on Puck’s physical characteristics as well as his ability to span across boundaries in the play and the metatheatrical realm.

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