Shakespeare 's A Midsummer Night 's Dream

Love is many things, and is also used as a reference to sight and vision such as blindness. It is much more than aesthetics and wields the power of sight, and can also cause chaos and destruction. Similarly, Shakespeare utilizes two types of blindness by love; the first being physical due to a love potion a fairy king, Oberon orders upon the humans in Shakespeare’s, A Midsummers Night’s Dream. The second, being metaphorical due to Antony’s immense amount of love towards Cleopatra, in which hinders his political motivation in Shakespeare’s, Antony and Cleopatra.

Have you ever heard a quote that really stood out to you. And then you went and told you friends that quote and they liked it. And they told people who told other people and then everyone liked. Eventually, you know with all the social media programs these days, its going to end up on facebook or instagram and even more people are going to find out about it. Thats one way a quote can become famous but another way is if it is in a popular movie or book. In this case it is from one of Shakespeare's finest and most known, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream the quote “the course of true love never did run smoothly” applies to the different people in the book: the first couple is Hermia and Lysander, Second Demetrius and Helena, and finally Pyramus and Thisbe.

William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream has been categorized as a comedy play because of all the characters being passionately in love to the point of being foolish. It’s a play all about love, and the characters that are in love are only young adults, so they are still naive when it comes to love. Their naivety and foolishness regarding love is what allows them to be taken advantage of by mischievous fairies when they all run away into the woods. By critiquing the love affairs and numerous misunderstandings that occur within the mystical woods, I argue that Shakespeare 's A Midsummer Night 's Dream portrays the characters’ young love as a foolish fantasy with drastic consequences.

In the very first scene, the audience learns that Hermia’s father does not approve of her relationship with Lysander. Although she never says it out loud, Hermia fears that something will tear her and Lysander apart, something that shows in her nightmare in the forest. In the play, when she awakes from her slumber, she exclaims, “Help me, Lysander, help me! Do thy best to pluck this crawling serpent from my breast! Ay me, for pity. What a dream was here? ... Methought a serpent ate my heart away, and you sat smiling at his cruel prey (2.2, 151-156).” This line is cut short in the movie, leaving out Hermia’s recounting of her dream, instead she mentions she had a dream and

Hermia’s speech in Act 2, Scene 2, 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 and 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,

In A MidSummer Night’s Dream, one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays, we are introduced to a character named Puck. The character depicted in Shakespeare play is based off of Elizabethan folklore. Puck was one of the most famous figures in English fairy tradition at the time. Puck was seen as a sly and crafty spirit, and is often referred to as Robin Goodfellow. Some sources believe that his roots go back as far as the Greek God Pan and to the Pagan deity, the Green Man. The name, Puck, derives from the Middle English 'pook ' or 'pouke ', another word for an elf or sprite. In early England, the name Puck seems to have been used in association with the Devil, probably through the encouragement of the Church. He was viewed back in that

“Audiences can gain a better understanding of ways to behave in a specific relationship through comparing past and present representations of them in texts.”

While for some true love is a simple affair, for many it is an awkward yet alluring dance around others to find that one special person that merely reduces mankind to a foolish and dumbstruck state. Such an effect is so prevalent that it may often seem as if some sort of wizardry is at play. In Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, he explores this connection of magic and love, in which each of the characters-- Helena, Hermia, Lysander, and Demetrius--are charmed and enchanted in a winding love dance around each other. With a little bit of mythological magic, troublemaker puck creates comedic and tangled love scenes between the four lovers, as well as the fairy queen’s falling for an ass. Thus he exemplifies the senseless and tom

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, one of William Shakespeare 's most well-known work, is a comedic play that has more than one plotlines. The play has many themes such as magic, dreams, and contrast. However, there is one theme that is reflected most throughout the play and that is love. In the play, Shakespeare shows us that love isn 't always what it seems to be; he shows us that love can be expressed in many different types. Throughout the play, we see three different types of love, blind love, inconstant love, and cruel love.

Symbols help to play an important part in giving a deeper meaning to a story. William Shakespeare uses a variety of symbols in his play A Midsummer Night’s Dream and by using these symbols he offers some insight onto why certain events take place in the play. Symbols are sometimes hard to decipher but as the reader continues to read the symbol’s meaning might become more clear. Shakespeare uses a variety of symbols in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but this paper will only discuss four of the major symbols.

"Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind", spoken by Helena in Act 1 Scene 1 line 234, explains that it matters not what the eyes see but what the mind thinks it sees. In the play, A Midsummer Night 's Dream, written by William Shakespeare, there are several instances where the act of seeing is being portrayed. The definition of vision is the ability to see, something you imagine or something you dream. This proves that even though one has the ability to see; the mind tends to interfere and sometimes presents a different picture. Various scenes in the play interpret this act on more than one occasion. For instance, the use of imagination plays a vital role as it depicts the powers and limitations of human vision presented in this story. The artful use of seeing which allows one to notice or become aware of someone or something, sight which helps someone or something be seen and, eyes which allow one to appreciate something seen helps the audience understand just how significant the act of seeing is in the daily love affairs of each character.

Shakespeare has many memorable female characters from Lady MacBeth from Macbeth to Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing. Both females are mentioned numerous times when discussions on Shakespeare’s plays comes about. One female character, though, is overlooked time and time again. Although not seen as a strong character, it is due to both historical context and male dominance that forced Hippolyta into the role she played in A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare.

A little imagination can go a long way. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare indicates that imagination is a critical part of life except for in Theseus’s. Throughout the play he is depicted as a very serious leader and criticizes everyone for dreaming. Although, the players and young lovers seem to be having a better time than he is. This teaches young readers about the importance of dreaming and using imagination. It tells people to do what makes them happy no matter the criticism. In the play, Shakespeare claims that imagination is a huge part of life and mocks Theseus because he is not as happy as the young lovers, is unimaginative and very serious.

Weird, unusual, different. These are all the words we can use to describe the book A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare. In the book, Bottom gets turned into a donkey, which you don’t see very often. Lysander shows that love is strong when he shows love to Hermia in the play and when he shows love to Helena. Lysander is a regular person who loves girls and wants to be with them. However, Hermia’s father did not want this marriage to happen because he wanted Hermia to marry Demetrius.