The Major Comedic Elements of A Midsummer Night’s Dream Like most comedies, Shakespeare’s comedies also aimed to entertain the audience and to conclude with a somewhat happy ending. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is no exception to that rule. Also like most of his comedies, the main theme of this play is marriage or the celebration of a marriage. Although marriage is the main theme of this play, Shakespeare conveys many other themes though the lyrical expressions of the work. These themes and many more will be explored throughout this paper in an attempt to prove that A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a comedy. Like most comedies of this time period, this play opens with the discussion of marriage. Hermia refuses to …show more content…
One of the most noticeable factors of comedy is the role of the vice. Where would a good comedy be without a prankster of some sort? Puck fulfills the role of the vice wonderfully whether it was intentional or not. Oberon, king of the fairies, and his wife Titania are in disagreement over a Indian changeling that he wishes to use as a henchman. In an attempt to punish Titania for her disobedience, he hires Puck to help him. Puck’s job is to attain a magical juice, which makes the victims fall in love with the first person or creature in sight. Oberon applies the juice in an attempt to distract his wife, so that she will give up the changeling and he can use him as a servant. This could also be looked at as another example of men versus women in the play. The rise of tension between characters is another characteristic of comedic plays. After Oberon sees the way that Helena has been treated by Demetrius, he orders Puck to apply the juice to the eyes of Demetrius. Puck accidentally applies the juice to Lysander’s eye, which causes him to fall in love with Helena. After the mistake had been caught, Oberon sends Puck to watch Helena and Oberon applies the juice to Demetrius’ eyes. This causes both men to fall for Helena and now the battle is for Helena and not Hermia. Helena is convinced that this is a joke or prank because neither of the two men loved her before. Now because of Puck’s mistakes the four decide to find a
When Puck begins to interact with the four lovers very shortly after, however, Egeus's ridiculous accusations of Lysander bewitching Hermia take an ironic echo as Oberon bewitches Titania with a love potion, suddenly bringing the ridiculousness of Egeus's statements into a new light. Puck, the perpetrator,
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.
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
Love is anonymous. It is superior to everything that matters. Love is a test, that sometimes can be failed, or sometimes can be worth those one- hundred points. Love is messy, and unorganized, it spills over the edges of everyones life. When love is controlled, it is complicated to figure out how to deal with it. It can have a good or bad ending. Confusion can occur when the love is tampered with. It can be saved with re-uniting of the love, and then living a happy ending. Many love connections are effected somehow either that person doing it to themselves, or someone else who mixes the love relationships up . Confusion within the love can cause misconception and turn into a disaster amongst each other. In Midsummer Nights Dream by
What is a comedy? According to a famous filmmaker, Woody Allen, thinks “Comedy is rather like a dessert, a bit like meringue.” A Midsummer Night’s Dream - a play written by William Shakespeare, is a comedy which talks about a love story between four lovers that live in Athens. Demetrius, Lysander, Hermia and Helena are all fighting for each other. The play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” written by Shakespeare, consisted of a lot of humorous situations, for example: When Titania fell in love with Bottom who had an ass; when Lysander suddenly fell in love with Helena, when Demetrius suddenly fell in love with Hermia. This essay is considered as a comedy, as it consists of exaggeration, irony, funny characters,
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Above all the tensions created by the discussion of marriage, Lysander deliver a quotes to his love Hermia. “The course of true love never did run smooth…” (Act 1, Scene 1, line 134) is a famous quote by Lysander. In the quote he conveys to readers that love is not perfect, it also has its ups and downs and that he and Hermia are going through a tough situation. Hermia and Lysander both love each other and have made a plan to meet in a forest and then escape Athens however the problem arises when Hermia has tells Helena this and she plans to tell Demetrius about this so that he will love her and not Hermia. The King of fairies− Oberon hears all this and decides to settle the dispute between all of them. He instructs his assistant Robin Goodfellow to search for Demetrius and put the love juice on his eyelids so that he is compelled to love Helena, he informs him about the dressing style of Demetrius in "thou shalt know the man by the Athenian garments he hath on" (Act 2, Scene 1, line 263-264). However there is a problem, in the forest there are two Athenian men dressed in Athenian garments and their identities were mistaken; instead of putting the love juice on Demetrius's eyelids Robin Goodfellow put it on Lysander's eyelids. Now Lysander "loves" Helena and wants to get away from Hermia. After discovering Robin Goodfellow's mistake, Oberon tries to correct this mistake by putting the same love juice in Demetrius's so that he loves Helena eyes however
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.
Throughout history literature has changed into many different forms and styles, it has also stayed the same in many different ways, literary techniques and elements are key to a good piece of writing, a perfect example that shows us just this is in, A Midsummer Nights Dream, where we will further explore the different literary elements that were used most notably the plot. The plot of a story lays out the foundation and the background for the entire play to come, we'll compare and contrast this element and look at the different sub elements which are produced. We will define similarities and difference in these elements form both the play o the film. Taking a look at things such as climax, play incidents, and the conflict will all give us
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.