The Irresistible Need for Control in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night’s Dream

The plot of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is made up of four subplots that intertwine with one another. Four young Athenians forced to flee from authority in response to an arranged marriage, a estranged relationship between the King and Queen of Faeries, a group of players fighting over a play, and a wedding. While each of these subplots are unique, they are connected not only by one event but a binary theme—control and rebellion. In the case of the four Athenian lovers, the binary theme of control and rebellion is obvious.

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.

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.

The book has some moments when things went well for the characters after they sought to control someone. Oberon and Titania had been fighting for a while and part of the reason was because Titania wouldn’t give him the changeling boy. “ I then did ask of her, her changeling child which straight she gave me.” Oberon is now satisfied because after putting the potion in Titania’s eyes, she gave him the changeling child with no hesitation. Still in the end section of the play, things are finally coming to good terms, for one the lovers are getting married. “ Sing and dance trippingly… will we sing and bless this place.” This is the scene where they are celebrating due to the success of getting the couples together.Which included controlling Lysander to get him to love Hermia again. As you read A Midsummer Night's Dream, you might notice that there are more downfalls than victories when it comes to control. Although some might look at the broad picture being drawn, if you dig deeper you will notice that Shakespeare makes known that controlling isn’t possible. Even though in the play Oberon seemed to have it his way, in reality things don’t always turnout that way, especially when dealing with

Oberon conjures up a plan in order to get a young child away from Titania, queen of the fairies, whilst doing this he is met with two of our other characters, Helena and Demetrius, “A sweet Athenian lady is in love/ with a huge disdainful youth. Anoint his eyes with the flower as well,” (II.i.268-269) in this point of the story Oberon encounters Helena who is trying to get the attention of Demetrius, who is completely ignoring her. This displays his need to place forceful authority because he is trying to controls Demetrius’s love, by putting him under a spell and making him fall in love with Helena. Unlike Egeus though, Oberon takes control over more than just one character, we see this in act 2 scene 1 lines 83-85 which says “Having once this juice,/ I’ll watch Titania when she is asleep/ And drop the liquor of it in her eyes,” out of the two Oberon would have to be the most controlling, because he in these three lines it shows yet another character Oberon is controlling. In this line though he is attempting to manipulate Titania in order to get the young changeling boy. Thereupon showing that in the face of love, control still will not

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare easily blurs the lines of reality by inviting the audience into a dream. He seamlessly toys with the boundaries between fantasy and reality. Among the patterns within the play, one is controlled and ordered by a series of contrasts: the conflict of the sleeping and waking states, the interchange of reality and illusion, and the mirrored worlds of Fairy and Human. A Midsummer Night's Dream gives us insight into man's conflict with characteristics of human behavior.

In many books, movies or real life there can be a lot of situations of gaining control either of someone or something. That might not always lead to happiness, but instead unhappiness . In the play A midsummer night’s dream by Shakespeare there is a lot of control that doesn’t always end in happiness. Also in the movie She’s the man by Ewan Leslie it shows how controlling does result in a lot of happiness. So gaining too much control can result in unhappiness, but can also lead to happiness. Like in the play and movie it either end up in unhappiness, happiness or both. Gaining control can lead to happiness, but having too much can result in unhappiness. This can be because if someone has too much power they could get too controlling over people.

When Shakespeare puts royals and other characters with the jurisdiction and authority in his play he is showing that people can be controlled by the power of authority. Also, when he gives some of his characters in depth personalities, he reveals that some people have self-centered and absorbed personalities. These people seem to always end up controlling some else even if they don’t mean to. In the end, A Midsummer Night’s Dream shows if you know how to and can do it right you can control others. Now that you know all about control you’ll probably be on the lookout for anyone trying to control you and maybe you will call them out on it

People can become jealous by wanting something that someone else has. Overzealous jealousy leads to desperation in which people act irrationally to obtain the object of their desire. With irrational actions, people can ruin their relationships to ensure that they will never get what they want; however, other factors could intervene to help them get it. William Shakespeare explores these ideas in his play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Two characters that he uses to show these qualities are Oberon and Helena. According to Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, jealousy turns people to take desperate measures to get what they want, and they may need intervention to obtain what they desire.

Initially, Oberon tried to manipulate his wife into giving up the Indian boy she adopted for his convenience. Subsequently, Oberon asked his sidekick, Puck the mischievous fairy, to retrieve a flower. Not to mention, that this flower had a special juice, so if you put it in a person’s eyes, they would fall in love with whomever they saw next. Oberon said, “Having once this juice, I’ll watch Titania when she is asleep and drop the liquor of it in her eyes. The next thing she waking looks upon… she shall pursue it with the soul of love… I’ll make her render up her page to me”.

Interpretations of greek mythology in shakespeare: mention main focus on ovid and reasons—most popular at time

Written in the ages of controlment and high standards towards women, exemplified in William Shakespeare's comedic playwright, A midsummer night’s dream, brings to life the frustration

In his comedic play, A Midsummers Night Dream (1595), William Shakespeare utilizes the enchanting adventures of young Athenian lovers and a group of low-class rudimentary actors and their shared experiences with supernatural creatures to portray the opportunity of being in command of their destiny. By presenting conflicts to these three diverse realms, Shakespeare allows these characters to connect despite their hierarchical distinctions to reveal their determination to conquer their adversity. He uses dramatic irony, metaphor, and symbolism to heighten the audience's awareness of their self-determination and their firm control on their future. Shakespeare inspires the public by instilling in them that despite their challenging circumstances, they can still be masters of their own fate, bestowing a feeling of newfound hope and freewill.

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.