Theme Of Mythology In A Midsummer Night's Dream

Many people go through different chaotic experiences in their lives, however, how one decides to restore order to their chaos, is most important. In William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, due to simultaneous appearences of chaos throughout the play, it leaves the audience speculating about the order yet to come, thus, developing/strenghtening the plot of the play. The various occurences of order and chaos within the play include, the arguments between Titania and Oberon, the unstable love circle between the four lovers and finally the bizarre relationship between Titania and Bottom.

Many people go through chaotic experiences in their lives, however, how one restores order to their chaos is most important. In William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, due to simultaneous appearances of chaos throughout the play, it leaves the audience speculating about the order yet to come, thus, developing/strengthening the play’s plot. The various occurrences of order and chaos within the play include the arguments between Titania and Oberon, the unstable love circle between four lovers and the bizarre relationship between Titania and Bottom.

To provide some context, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream interferes with love through the deception of fairies. When Hermia’s father insists she marry Demetrius, she runs away with Hermia and Lysander. Contrastingly, Helena chases after an uninterested Demetrius, helplessly in love. The fairies meddle with these two couples by accidentally casting a love

This contrasts to the unrhymed iambic pentameter of the Athenians. Because the meters are in fact inverses of each other, it shows how, although both worlds are similar on the surface, they are very different at the core. Both the Athenians and the fairies were struggling with complexities of love. Demetrius with Helena, Lysander with Hermia, and Oberon with Titania all fought the impending chaos that so often accompanied love. The only difference between the squabbling couples was their nature. In the case of Demetrius, Helena, Lysander and Hermia, they were nothing more than mortals. However, the fairies were considered magical beings of great power. Their presence was intimidating and their command was to be respected. By giving end rhyme to the fairies, Shakespeare set them apart intellectually from the lovers and they became more dignified and lyrical in their nature. Because Shakespeare blurred the lines of dominance between the lovers and the fairies through similar meter while maintaining the stereotypical fairy personality of the time, he induced a sense of chaos. Social order began to crumble and emotional breakdowns started soon after.

Oberon, the King of the fairies, and Robin Goodfellow, his right-hand man, are the major manipulators of this fantasia, and magic is their primary tool. Oberon and Robin use the juice from a flower, purportedly struck by Cupid’s arrow, to make selected characters fall in love. Despite the dreamlike setting, this magic is deliberate, powerful, and sometimes dangerous. The focus of their conjury is interference in people’s love lives, and each intervention has a different motive. In Act Two, Scene One, Oberon first uses the flower’s juice for personal gain.

Despite magic and freedom there is also a hierarchy commitment, Puck serves to Oberon, Fairies serves to Titania. Oberon used the magic and deception to obtain desired. But he doesn’t like the results of misunderstood between lovers caused with magic, he orders Puck to prevent fight between Lysander and Demetrius “and all things shall be peace”.

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

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

Humans are known for making mistakes all the time and the fact that Robin mistakes Lysander for Demetrius shows that he too suffers from error and is not infallible. "Weeds of Athens he doth wear. This is he my master said Despised the Athenian maid." This mistake allows for the actions and conflicts that take place between the lovers to finally come through and surface to the audience. The human actors provide entertainment for the duke and elite of Athens as the fairies provide entertainment for the audience and the lovers in the forest. The servants of Oberon and Titania reflect the servants of Theseus and the performers of the play in the fact that both groups of servants are controlled by a higher power. "That thou shalt like an airy spirit go. Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Mote, and Mustardseed!" Both fairies and humans fall in love with another as shown between Titania and Oberon and Lysander and Hermia.

A Midsummer’s Night Dream by William Shakespeare demonstrates that imagination is an amazing thing, as it allows the audience to think differently and be unique and form new ideas, concepts and images. Shakespeare’s play uses an immense amount of imagination to help develop the story create conflicts and complications to engage the audience. Imagination is also used in the way Shakespeare presents the play to the audience and in the way the characters are presented.

These fairies cause disagreements and also resolutions throughout the play. One example of the effect that fairies make in the play is when Puck mistakenly enchants Lysander into falling in love with Helena instead of Demetrius. This mistake only gets worst when Oberon and Puck enchant Demetrius into falling in love with Helena as well. Now, both men are in love with Helena. The Super Natural can also be seen in the play when Oberon tells Puck that he has been targeted by cupid’s arrow and now serves as a love potion.

Shakespeare infuses his own ideals into his fairy characters in order to make them a bit more Shakespearean. He keeps the Elizabethan ideals of beauty and nature, and makes his fairies small and with wings. Shakespeare?s use of fairies in his play proved to be a popular move amongst not only those in Elizabethan England, but readers since.

This leads Oberon to take matters into his own hands. Where Puck was taking the place of Cupid, casting love relatively blindly and stupidly about the forest, as"...love [is] said to be a child because in choice he is so oft beguil'd" Oberon, therefore, takes the place of reason in the unreasonable realm of love. True love in A Midsummer Night's Dream is in 3 forms. Theseus and Hippolyta, Oberon and Titania and Hermia and Lysander.

The fairy king and queen live in a type of parallel universe to their human counterparts. The forest that they live in represents a break from reality, or at least the reality initially presented. Despite their supernatural abilities, Oberon and Titania endure arguments like any couple, which instantly creates a blurring of reality and fantasy in the play. It is from an argument regarding the young Indian prince that propels Oberon to be at odds with his wife, which compels him to create chaos through magic. He is driven by the love for his wife, and love is also a prevalent theme throughout the play. It is love that drives all the characters, and not always rationally. As Robert Dent writes in his article, “Imagination in A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, “love sees with that part of the mind that has no taste of judgment (177)”, which is clearly displayed by the couples in the play. Interestingly, the blurring of reality and illusion originates with a lover’s spat, highlighting the impact that love can have on reality.

It is only through the machinations of the play’s metatheatrical stage managers that the issue of Demetrius’ unhappiness can be smoothed over into something that resembles the happy ending we expect as an audience. It is, in the end, the Faeries’ magic that allows the happy ending to emerge from all the chaos within the Green World, even if some of that chaos was caused by the Faeries to begin with. Puck, for instance, mistakenly applies the love-in-idleness to Lysander’s eyelids and causes him to fall in love with Helena. Oberon later realizes the mistake, and utilizes the love-in-idleness once more to enchant Demetrius, so it is now Helena who has too many suitors, and Hermia too few. Magic becomes the only force capable of undoing its own mischief, and resolves the play’s tensions by restoring a balance to the love between the four young Athenians. That surreal, fantastic element in the play’s major action allows for happiness to come to light in the end, even if we view the outside influence as something artificial within the relationships.