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Who Is Puck In A Midsummer Night's Dream

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One of William Shakespeare’s best known and acclaimed works is A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a play set in Ancient Greece that tells of the marriage of king Theseus to Hippolyta and delves into the love affairs of four Athenian youths. The narrative predominantly explores the themes of the nature of love and the perception of reality, while providing the audience an opportunity to laugh not only at the insane events that take place throughout the story, but also at both the poet and themselves. The story features a vast amount of characters; however, Robin Goodfellow, most often called Puck, is one of the most relevant to the understanding and development of the story. In fact, Puck serves as Shakespeare’s voice in the play by confronting the …show more content…

Thanks to Puck, the reader can appreciate the complex story arc involving Lysander, Demetrius, Helena and Hermia. Were it not because of Puck mistakenly squeezing the “love-in-idleness” flower on Lysander’s eyelids instead of Demetrius’, the story would have been completely different. Puck also provides the audience a chance to enjoy the comedic transformation of Bottom’s head into that of an ass, as well as his brief affair with Titania, Queen of the fairies. However, Puck’s strongest relationship is with Oberon, King of the fairies. In fact, Oberon is the only character who addresses Puck as “My gentle Puck,” which seems to reveal that before Oberon’s eyes, Puck is not just a mere mischievous spirit, but also a genuinely and positively gentle being. This particular relationship is the one that sets the whole story in motion. Daniel Derrin further defines Puck and Oberon’s relationship as complementary, by pointing out that “Other fairies in the play recognize Puck as one who can laugh at the harm of misled “night wanderers,” but that representation is balanced by his subordinate relationship to an Oberon who can step in and fix things before they create permanent harm” (Derrin

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