William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Nights Dream and L. Frank Baum's The Wizard Of Oz
L. Frank Baum is the author of one of the most magical fairy tales ever brought to our screens. A series of books were written and in 1939 created into a film. It was a masterpiece that was to be one of the biggest films ever made, enjoyed by children and adults all over the world. There are many reasons why this film has the element of magic, one of the reasons I found when researching was that this film did not only have one director, but several, Victor Fleming was the main director but for personal reasons other directors were bought in, Richard Thorpe and King Vidor. With the three imaginations of these
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As I said the book isn't a book read by younger children, but when like The Wizard Of Oz it was brought to the big screen, a world of magic and fairies was open for children to jump in and dream. In the play, the worlds of the mythological Greece, Elizabethan England, and the fairy kingdom are united. In another writer's hands, the transition from Theseus' Greek empire to the fairy forest would seem jarring, but time and again audiences have willingly suspended their disbelief to follow Hermia and Lysander, Oberon and Puck, Titania and Bottom on a journey through the pitfalls of love, the power of magic, and the miracle of dreams.
Although there are no fairies in The Wizard Of Oz, we desperately wanted an air of magic throughout, we decided to do this through the use of music, this is done in both films, (The Wizard of Oz and A Midsummer night's dream)
In The Wizard of Oz it is done through the characters singing, in A Midsummer Night's dream its done through mystical music, we had each character singing, as a way of introducing ourselves to the children; after all not EVERYONE has seen the play before, this was a hard assumption to live by, as everyone seems to know the theme of The Wizard of Oz, a little girl dreams up a fantasy world, where dreams really do come
Wizard of Oz and Wicked. Two very different stories both sharing the same characters and setting. The two plots are so masterfully intertwined, but showing two very different points of view. Although they share so many similarities, relationships and conflicts between the two are very different. Glinda maybe isn’t so good after all, Elphaba was just trying to do what was right, and the Wizard was the real villain all along. To truly see things as they really are, both sides of a story must be acknowledged and understood, or else someone else’s story will be lost.
In 1939 one of the most memorable film was released, The Wizard of Oz. In 1978 The Wiz, an urban reimaging of the exemplary novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz put an African American vibe to a film. The novel turned into films follows the adventures of Dorothy, a girl who embark on an adventure in strange and fantastical land just wanting to go back home. In this essay I’m going to plot each film and compare the main character of Dorothy, the Scarecrow, Tin Man, Cowardly Lion and the Wiz and discuss how the design and music differ from each film.
The Wizard of Oz has been a popular and symbolic film throughout our previous history. Both the book and movie have been recognised as classic literature for children and adults alike. Although they share the same concept, there are a few important differences between the novel and the film.
Love is such an abstract and intangible thing, yet it is something that everyone longs for. In Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the difficulty of love is explored through the obstacles that characters have to face while pursuing their loved ones. Those characters that are in love in the play were conflicted with troubles; however, the obstacles of love do not seem to stop them from being infatuated with each other. The concept of true love is examined throughout this play. By creating obstacles using authority and a higher power, Shakespeare examines the power of love. Through Hermia and Lysander’s loving words, it is reasonable to conclude that love conquers all if you believe in it.
The Tempest by William Shakespeare and Mama Day by Gloria Naylor are two fantastic stories that both belong to the genre magical realism, which is where magical elements are incorporated into realistic fiction. Prospero the main character is robbed of Dukedom and marooned on an island with his infant daughter where he meets natives and fire demons who do his bidding. Mama Day the main character in Gloria Naylor’s novel is a no nonsense woman who uses her magic to help the other residents of their island. Even though Naylor denies that Mama Day is modern retelling of the Tempest it is hard not see that there are similarities between the stories. However, there are some differences. Prospero takes justice into his own hands, just as the characters around Mama Day take their situations into their own hands. They do not trust Mama Day’s ways until they are forced to ask for her help. Whereas Prospero and Miranda might seem like parallel characters because they both use magic, Miranda knows its limits and uses it to help others, while Prospero only discovers the limits of magic after he gives it up.
‘Pride and Prejudice' first appeared between 1796 and 1797 under the title, ‘First Impressions'. At first, the novel was written anonymously; however, after Jane Austen's death, the novel became publicly known to people. The novel itself is a comedy of manners set in a quiet and charming rural England, between 1796 and 1813; to be exact, Pride and Prejudice is set amidst Napoleonic Wars, dating from 1797 up to 1815. In Austen's words, the novel was ‘light and bright and sparkling'. The quote from William Shakespeare best describes the love stories of Jane Bennet and Charles Bingley; Elizabeth Bennet and
Throughout the works of Shakespeare there are several relationships that develop in order to help guide the story into its conclusion. For instance, in Othello, and Taming of the Shrew, similar relationships between the male and female lead characters are displayed and emphasized to bring large meaning to each of the texts. It is these relationships between fathers and daughters, as well as husbands and wives that form to progress the plots of each play. Through these bold and sometimes fatal relationships, Shakespeare portrays a domino effect that each of the female leads put into play through their actions.
The book, written by L. Frank Baum in 1900, was the inspiration behind the movie the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The problem, though, is that the movie does not follow the book at all. Most of the movie plays off the ideas and characters in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, while following a general plot of Dorothy’s quest to the Emerald City. The biggest, and most important difference between the book The Wizard of OZ and the movie edition is that in the movie, Dorothy is simply dreaming, and in the other, she was carried to the land of OZ because of the tornado that swept through Kansas. The Wizard of Oz the movie portrays the story as a dream that Dorothy is having, with people in her life showing up as characters in the dream. This is a clever twist on the story plot, and it provides a little more entertainment, for the viewer, than the first chapter of the book, which gives a dull description of the Kansas prairie.
John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi and William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream women react to authority in significantly different ways. The authors focus both on women showing acceptance to power and women who shy away from it.
A German Proverb once stated that, “Every man is the architect of his own fortune.” In expressing his opinion that people have more control over their fate than their fate does over them, this proverb was mistaken. Contrary to what the Proverb espoused, the cruelty of the world and the harsh reality of blind fortune have much more to do with what happens to a person than what actions they take, and good actions cannot guarantee good fortune. The inaccuracy of this quote can be proven in looking at both the tragedies of King Lear, by William Shakespeare, and Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller.
As years went by there have been many other film adaptations of The Wizard of Oz such as, The Wonderful Land of Oz, The Wiz, Return to Oz, and Oz the Great and Powerful. There are also many references to the famous tale today. There was a study at Northwestern University that showed that there are over five hundred references to it in modern films
Gender identity and its roles in 17th and 19th century England were regarded as rigid fact — definite and unyielding. The adherence to these social protocols was of utmost importance. Masculinity was viewed as being dominant, assertive, and bold, whereas femininity involved beauty, obedience, and chastity. The theatre became a method of challenging this rigid social concept. Both William Shakespeare’s As You Like It and Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest explore these public values through their characters. Wilde and Shakespeare’s use of gender reversals satirize the traditions of social order, marriage, and gender responsibilities at the time, thereby revealing that gender is not absolute.
“The cyclone had set the house down into a country of marvelous beauty.” is merely just the beginning of the tale of Dorothy traveling through a mysterious land, making interesting friends, and eventually slaying an evil witch. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is an epic by L. Frank Baum is known by children and adults alike all over. And what exactly makes this tale of a naive little girl an epic? The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is an epic due to its characteristics, conventions, archetypes, and the way it follows the stereotypical hero’s journey.
Fate can be very complicated in life. Fate is determined by not only God, but the decisions people make. Fate can be either good or bad, as it is the end result of prior events. Often in literature we see fate as being grouped with death. Sophocles once said that “the greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves”. When people guide themselves or others to their downfall it is one of the most powerful control of fates. This can be proven in the literature works of Antigone by Sophocles and A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams. Where the characters are tragic heroes and what makes them tragic heroes is that they accept defeat for their beliefs.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a comedy written by the notorious playwright Shakespeare. This story is filled with illusion and misconception, leaving the characters in a daze. Pertinent to the title of the play is this illusion in which everyone determines to be a dream. In addition to the origin of the dream is the midsummer night when it occurs. Though the story begins and concludes in Theseus’s castle in Athens, it mainly takes place in the woods at night. Hitherto, the story ensues on a midsummer night where the characters are met with a peculiar situation. Though everyone holds a different reason as to why they end up in the woods, their stories become intertwined.