A Midsummer Night’s Dream Summary and Analysis

Act 1, Scene 1 Summary

The scene opens at Theseus’s palace, where Theseus, the Duke of Athens, in consultation with his fiancée Hippolyta, is preparing the city for their wedding. Theseus orders Philostrate, the Master of the Revels at Theseus’ court, to arrange entertainment for their wedding. Theseus reveals that he has won Hippolyta’s hand in marriage as a reward in a war and promises that their wedding will be joyous. The couple is excited about the wedding.

A nobleman named Egeus enters along with his daughter—Hermia— Lysander, and Demetrius. Egeus has chosen Demetrius to marry his daughter, but Hermia refuses to do so. She reveals that she is in love with Lysander, who she argues is no less than Demetrius in social stature. Lysander mentions that his love for Hermia is more genuine; he states that before Hermia Demetrius had courted Helena, whom Demetrius had abandoned quite abruptly. However, according to the laws of Athens, Hermia is instructed by the Duke to obey her father; else, she might face execution or be confined forever in a convent. All actors exit, except Lysander and Hermia.

Lysander consoles Hermia and tells her his plan for elopement. He asks her to meet him in the woods outside the city the next evening so they can run away to his widowed aunt’s house where the laws of Athens do not apply. Lysander plans to marry Hermia there.

Helena, who was engaged to Demetrius and is Hermia’s friend, enters and wonders how Hermia has managed to woo Demetrius. Demetrius had fallen out of love with Helena the moment he met Hermia. Helena is understandably heartbroken. Hermia tells her that she has not done anything to make Demetrius fall in love with her. To comfort her, Hermia discloses her plan to elope with Lysander. The couple agrees that Demetrius should reciprocate Helena’s love.

When Lysander and Hermia exit, Helena launches into a soliloquy in which she probes the irrationality of love. She desires to go back to the time when Demetrius used to love her. She says that although the people of Athens find her beautiful, Demetrius doesn’t think so. She decides to prove her devotion to Demetrius by disclosing Hermia’s intent to elope.

Act 1, Scene 1 Analysis

This scene features two of the play’s main themes: hurdles in the path of love and the irrationality of love. All the couples introduced in the play face obstacles in realizing their love. The first pair introduced in the play, Theseus and Hippolyta, is waiting to get married, but has to wait till the moon shifts to the next phase. Hermia and Lysander are deeply in love with each other, but societal rules forbid their union. Demetrius is in love with Hermia after falling out of love with Helena. Helena’s unrequited love for Demetrius leaves her heartbroken and shattered, but she resolves to prove her devotion.

Helena’s soliloquy comments on the irrationality of love. She points out that “things base and vile, holding no quantity,/Love can transpose to form and dignity,/Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind;/And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind.” Irrationality makes lovers see their beloved in a different light, and they only see what they desire to see and not the reality. In this scene, Shakespeare also establishes the presence of different worlds in the play: the world of dreams and the world of reality. Both these realms are contradictory to each other and have their own characteristics. The first scene evokes the world of reality, where the things are ordered in a logical and hierarchical manner. This world is dictated by stringent social hierarchy: Theseus winning Hippolyta’s hand in marriage after emerging victorious in a war, a father deciding the fate of his daughter, and the rules of the state overriding individual freedom. In sharp contrast, the play will shift to the realm of the fantastical world where rules of the real world don’t apply. The magical forest in this world is free from societal structures, and it is the site where all conflicts and struggles are resolved. Only the first scene and the last one occur during daytime. The rest of the play takes place at night, which heightens the otherworldly aspect of the play.

Act 1, Scene 2 Summary

A group of artisans gathers at Peter Quince’s house where he casts them for the play he has written based on “Pyramus and Thisbe.” The tragicomic play will be performed at Theseus and Hippolyta’s wedding. The story is about two lovers whose families object to their union because of a family feud. At the end of the play, believing that Thisbe has been killed by a lion, Pyramus commits suicide.

The artisans are prone to disagreement. Nick Bottom, a weaver, argues that he can play all the parts. He repeatedly interrupts the meeting and finally bags the role of the protagonist, Pyramus. When he tells the group that he also wants to play the lion, others object. They think that his realistic portrayal of a lion might frighten people, which in turn might upset Theseus, who might execute them all. Flute settles on playing Thisbe; he wears a mask so that he doesn’t have to shave to play the female lead. They plan to memorize their lines before meet the following evening in the woods for rehearsal.

Act 1, Scene 2 Analysis

Shakespeare adopts the play-within-a-play technique in this scene to allude to the fate that might have befallen the couples had Shakespeare not transported the characters from the real world to the fantastical world. The setting—Peter Quince’s humble cottage—serves as a buffer between the orthodox and rigid world of reality and the enchanted world of the fairies. Shakespeare also makes a statement about the nature of reality versus the theatre. Theatre is essentially a bridge between reality and fantasy, and the stage is a façade.

Shakespeare’s choice of “Pyramus and Thisbe” for the play within A Midsummer Night’s Dream is significant. Firstly, the idea that a tragedy of such a stature is to be played by a group of amateur tradesmen itself induces humor. Their performance is expected to be farcical and humorous rather than dramatic. Secondly, it shadows the trials and tribulations that the two characters, Lysander and Hermia, face for their love. The plot of the play is similar to that of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, which was written around the same time. Hence, A Midsummer Night’s Dream can be seen as Shakespeare’s take on the challenges of love; it suggests that love can be tragic or comic or even tragicomic, which is common in many of Shakespeare’s works. There is a close relationship between the heightened emotions of comedy and tragedy in these plays.