The Importance of Magic in a Midsummer Night

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.

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.

In act 3 scene 2, Hermia cried out to Lysander, who had betrayed her, “Why are you grown so rude? What change is this, Sweet love?” but Lysander says, “Thy love! Out, tawny Tartar, out! Out, loathèd med'cine! O hated potion, hence!” (3.2.172-175) Because Lysander falls in love with Helena because Puck mistakenly put his love potion on Lysander, Hermia, the actual lover of Lysander, got hurt by him. She could not believe that Lysander did not love her anymore. This was wrong. Helena was not the true love of Lysander. However, because of the blind love effect of the love potion, Lysander forgot his true love.

At the time, Lysander and Hermia were completely smitten with each other. But her father Egeus disapproved of their relation and wishes for Hermia to marry Demetrius. He comes to Theseus with these concerns and uses his Athenian rights to chose the man his daughter wed. Disrespecting his daughter’s feelings and clearly biased against Lysander, Egeus went so far as to dishonor him before the duke and force Hermia into a position where she must follow his wishes, die or become a nun. Hermia refuses every option, but their love is clearly disrupted with this great obstacle. In contrast to Egeus’ claims of Lysander’s trickery, Hermia and Lysander are clearly devoted to each other. Hermia clings onto their love and Lysander comforts her in a manner that gives him the reputation of a romantic. Before concluding, “So quick bright things come to confusion”, he says that “The course of true love never did run smooth” (Shakespeare, P15). Love brings happiness, it nourishes the soul and completes one’s heart, but it can fall short just as easily and bring about even greater hate. Another example of this involves the Oberon and Titania, the King and Queen of fairies respectively. They start off as a separate layer in this play and though their fondness for each other isn’t described as thoroughly, their conflict stands

The fairies and the fairy realm have many responsibilities in this play. The most important of which is that they are the cause of much of the conflict and comedy within this story. They represent mischievousness and pleasantry which gives the play most of its emotion and feeling. They relate to humans because they make mistakes but differ in the fact that they do not understand the human world.

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.

Control is a big part of Shakespeare's Midsummer’s Night Dream and is what brings the whole story together. Whether, it is parental control, or it is the control of peers this story is full of it. Control is expressed with all of the characters, no matter how powerful or what their role is. Hermia and Helena two of the four teenagers and are best friends, but they have many problems throughout the story due to the other. Hermia and her father Egues are another example of control in this story. This shows two of the different kinds of control Shakespeare's Midsummer’s Night Dream has and also shows two of the controlled relationship that makes up the story.

William Shakespeare starts with a seemingly unresolvable conflict in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The main characters are lovers who are either unrequited in their love or hassled by the love of another. These lovers are inevitably paired. How does Shakespeare make this happen? He creates many subplots that, before long, are all snarled up into a chaotic knot. So, what actions does Shakespeare take to resolve these new quandaries? He ends up trusting a single key entity with his comedy. It’s only then that he introduces a special character into his world: a mischievous fairy whom is known by the name of Puck. Puck is the catalyst for all these subplots and, indeed, for the entirety of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Try to take Puck

When the love potion was put on Lysander he had no feelings for Hermia but she still stayed true to him. Oberon wants to get involved in everybody's love life and Puck his sidekick puts the love potion on the wrong Athenian man and the love quadrilateral get confusing. Lysander said “ She doesn’t see Hermia- Hermia keep sleeping and do not come near me ever again! Eating too many sweets make people sick to their stomachs and people always hates mistakes they made in the past worse than anyone else hates those mistakes. Hermia, you're the sweet I’ve had too much of and the mistake I used to make so I hate you more than anyone else does.-I’ll use all my talents and efforts to serve Helena and bring her honor.” (Shakespeare.2.2.59-61.) Hermia

In William Shakespeare’s book, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, magic is a powerful and useful tool for the characters that have the capability to use it. Some of the characters abuse the power of magic, while others are more responsible in how they use it. Oberon is one the characters that abuses the power of magic. Oberon’s magic has an immense impact on the plot of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. More specifically, Oberon’s magic affects his own life, the lives of other characters, and all the characters in the story experience his magic differently. We will see that even the person who has power to use the magic can become surprised by it. Magic, the ultimate supernatural power, is often unpredictable and inexplicable.

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.

Some people believe in magic, while others do not. Magic alters something or someone using supernatural forces. In William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, magic is a secret, mysterious force. Characters are influenced into love by the power of a magic potion. Titania, the queen of the fairies, falls in love with Nick Bottom, a mechanical actor, who is a non-magical character. Lysander, one of the four lovers, falls in love with Helena after being desperately in love with Hermia. Finally, Demetrius falls in love with Helena, whom he hated before, changing the entire love triangle within the play. Magic influences the characters in the play because it clouds their judgement by making them fall in love with someone who they did not think of loving before.

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