Puck: The Heart and Soul of A Midsummer Night’s Dream Essay

Though Puck adds much humor to the play while tormenting and drugging the lovers in the forest, he also acts as a catalyst in redirecting their devotions among one-another, thus demonstrating the fickle nature of love. For example, Lysander, who in one instant is blindly in love with his fair Hermia, will suddenly wake to find himself obsessed with

Setting in the city of Athens, a wedding is soon to approach by Theseus, duke of Athens, and Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons. The story, however, mainly centers around a set of troublesome lovers whose triangle of love causes misfortune throughout the play. Though the play focuses around the problematic lovers, Puck definitely stands as a central troublemaker between them. Puck, otherwise known as Robin Goodfellow, is a mischievous pixie who finds pleasure in playing jokes on others. “I am that merry wanderer of the night.” (2.1.29) Puck answers to a fairy a=when asked who he may be. Although, his joyous, whimsical and charismatic personality sets the atmosphere of the play. Requested by Oberon, king of the fairies, Puck collects a magical

A Misummer Night’s Dream is a comedy play written by William Shakespeare. In this play there are multiple themes however the most evident theme is love. Why is love an evident theme? It is an evident theme because the play commences with two Greek mythology characters─ the Duke of Athens, Theseus and Amazon queen Hippolita planning their marriage. However as Theseus plans his marriage he has to help Egeus persuade his daughter Hermia to marry Demetrius. Unfortunately both the Duke and Egeus failed to persuade Hermia into marrying Demetrius so the fairies (another set of characters. The fairies in this play consisted of goddess of chastity and Queen of fairies, Titania and King of fairies Oberon and his assistance Robin Goodfellow) decide

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.

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as in many of Shakespeare's plays the main theme is love. Shakespeare presents many different aspects of love in the play. He shows how love can affect your vision of reality and make you behave in irrational ways. He presents many ways in which your behavior is affected by the different types and aspects of love. The main types of love he presents are; true love, unrequited love, sisterly love, jealous love, forced love, and parental love. Shakespeare tries to show what kinds of trouble, problems and confusion, love can get you into.

Puck is the only character that is directly involved in all of the action that takes place throughout the play. Although the action doesn’t affect Puck personally, without him, the events of the play wouldn’t take place. According to critic Ana Isabel Bordas del Prado, Puck is completely crucial to the play, “although he appears to be a kind

In the comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the plethora of comedic styles used by Shakespeare illustrate his intention to poke fun at love throughout the play. The play is notorious for its intricate and irrational plotline, mainly due to the constantly shifting love triangles. Once the powerful fairies become involved with the fate of the naive lovers – Demetrius, Helena, Lysander and Hermia – matters are further complicated. The complication inflicted by the fairies is credited to the powerful love potion that Oberon, King of the Fairies, hands over to Puck, a mischievous fairy, to use on his wife Titania, with intentions to embarrass and distract her. This spiteful attitude is due to Oberon and Titania’s argument over the custody of an

The themes of this play are mostly to do with love and magic however the play as a whole is a comedy. The magic scene is the scene that brings the whole play together. Without it the lovers would not be called lovers and there wouldn’t be a marriage. Before puck put the love potion on them Lysander was in love with Hermia but her dad wanted her to marry Demetrius; and Helena was in love with Demetrius on the other hand Demetrius was not in love with either of them. Puck sorted things out by putting a love potion on Demetrius so that he falls in love with Helena. The funny part about it all is when they are all confused when they awake from what they think is a dream which is a dramatic irony because we know it wasn’t a dream but in fact a reality.

Where Shakespeare's tragedies will tell the story, chiefly, of a single principal character, this is rarely the case with his comedies. The comedies are more social and deal with groups of characters. In the case of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the principal groups are, at first, introduced severally. Though, one group may interact with another (as when Puck anoints Lysander's eyes, or Titania is in love with Bottom) they retain separate identities.

Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is often read as a dramatization of the incompatibility of “reason and love” (III.i. 127), yet many critics pay little attention to how Shakespeare manages to draw his audience into meditating on these notions independently (Burke 116). The play is as much about the conflict between passion and reason concerning love, as it is a warning against attempting to understand love rationally. Similarly, trying to understand the play by reason alone results in an impoverished reading of the play as a whole – it is much better suited to the kind of emotive, arbitrary understanding that is characteristic of dreams. Puck apologises directly to us, the audience,

Therefore, Puck is a mischievous, as he misleads lost people in the woods, he is cruel, he laughs at people’s misery and lastly loyal, follows and does as what Oberon says. I believe understand the character traits of Puck, or any other character would help an actor play the role, as he knows what the character is like and how he behaves. As a young talented actor that is striving for experience, I know how the mind of puck is and I know how he would

Puck with his misguided actions made Lysander fall in love with Helena and this is what she has always wanted but was in so much disbelief that she rejected the advances from him. On the inside, she must have been confused and a little smitten with the fact that not only Lysander but also Demetrius both wanted her at the same time, so much so that she did not believe the at all. Nevertheless, Puck brought happiness to Helena and no one was hurt in the process, well maybe Helena was a little insulted, but she ended up with the man of her dreams in the end. It was self-evident by his actions that Puck never meant to hurt anyone, he just did not take into account there being two men that dressed the same, the same as King Oberon had described. “Shakespeare’s fairies cannot resist interfering in the Athenians’ lives” (Brown, 2009). Puck seems to just cause chaos, but after telling the King of his misdoing, the Oberon dismisses him and tells him to correct the issue. The issues between the King and Queen of the fairies started to heat up over the changeling boy. The King is compelled to make him his own and the queen will not allow it. The Queen has her mind made up that the changeling will not leave her sights. “Give me that boy, and I will go with thee. Not for thy

William Shakespeare’s play ‘Midsummer Night's Dream’ used magic to cause conflict between the four protagonist lovers. When Puck, who is a comedic and mischievous elf, who flies around the earth to get a magical flower which has juice

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