1. A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Genre and Conventions
Shakespearean Comedy
-The protagonists are in conflict with an overpowering force usually an opposition of old and young
-The main action is about love and the protagonists in love have to overcome obstacles
-There is lots of scheming, plotting and deceit within a three part structure of events go wrong, ridiculous complications to a resolution to all conflict.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream Plot Summary
(ACT 1) Egeus wants his daughter Hermia to marry Demetrius but she is in love with Lysander. Egeus takes his case to Theseus, Duke of Athens who has just married Hippolyta, who says Hermia must marry Demetrius, become a nun or die. Hermia and Lysander decide to run away into the forest. Demetrius follows them and Helena, Hermia’s friend, who is in love with Demetrius follows him. (ACT 2) Meanwhile, in the forest King of the fairies Oberon and Queen Titania are fighting over a changeling boy. Titania won’t give him up and Oberon makes his servant Puck play a trick on her. Oberon wants Puck to put a love spell on the Queen so she falls in love with whatever she sees first. Oberon sees Helena and Demetrius fighting and orders Puck to make them fall in love. Puck mixes up Demetrius and Lysander and the four lovers begin to argue.
In the forest also are a groups of craftsmen rehearsing a play for Theseus’ wedding. (ACT 3) One of the men, Bottom, has his head turned into an ass by Puck. Titania wakes up and sees Bottom and falls in love with him. (ACT 4) Puck is sent to fix the lovers quarrel and they fall asleep only to be awoken by Theseus hunting in the woods. Lysander and Hermia marry, Demetrius and Helena marry. Bottom is transformed again, Titania and Oberon make up and everyone watches the Mechanical’s Play at Theseus’ wedding celebration.
Key Concepts
Writer’s message
Shakespeare makes light of love and how erratic and uncontrollable it can be.
He also highlights the contrast between living with social rules and regulations in Athens and living without control and boundaries in the forest.
Key Themes and Motifs
Themes: An idea, belief or message that appears more than once in a piece of literature
Love: The fairies make light of it and it is shown through the various marriages and pairings of the characters. Love can be erratic and fickle but also powerful.
Magic: it is used to embody the supernatural power of love. Magic happens quickly and efficiently and is a contrast to the labors and difficulty in the human world.
Dreams: They are used as a way of characters explaining unusual events. Shakespeare was interested in dreams and how they occur without explanation and provide a sense of illusion.
Mistaken Identity: As part of the conflict within the play characters are mistaken for someone else, for example when Puck mistakes Lysander for Demetrius. Shakespeare could be trying to say that love is fleeting here and we are not as in control of our fate as we think we are.
Motif: A dominant image or idea that reappears in a piece of work
Contrast: Contrasts are shown through the setting and characters such as Titania and Bottom.
Social and Historical Context and Vocabulary
Staging: The play was first performed around th- and 17th-century audiences watched Shakespeare's plays being performed at open-air London theatres during the day. The stage had no scenery, few props, and women were played by boys with unbroken voices.
Queen Elizabeth: Reigned from Her reign saw England prosper and become a major player in Europe, although not all citizens supported her. She chose not to marry, maybe due to her own infertility or to prevent political instability and loss of power through her choice of husband. She defied the expectations of a patriarchal society ( a society in which men are more important than women.)
Setting of the play: Ancient Greece, Shakespeare studied the classics and would be aware of life in Greece. The fairies also derive from traditional medieval folklore.
Magic: Many people would believe in magic and fairies. They believed that if a baby was born with a deformity that it meant a fairy had replaced the healthy baby with a ‘ fairy changeling’ when the parents weren’t looking. They also believed that if the fairy King and Queen had fallen out, then the world would become troublesome until they had made amends again.
Gender: Both Athens and Elizabethan England were patriarchal societies. Women were denied all political rights and considered legally subject to their husbands. Women who did not marry for whatever reason were forced to live in under the control of a male relative in his home or in a convent, where a woman could become a nun. Aristocratic families often required their young daughters to marry successful older men. Girls were considered suitable for marriage at the age of 14 but had to give their consent to a marriage.
Language
Imagery: Language which creates vivid sensory ideas in the reader’s mind, such as a representation of a specific picture or sound, eg. The image of the moon to reflect mystery and madness
Simile: An explicit comparison between two things using ‘like’ or ‘as’
Metaphor: An implicit comparison between two things not using ‘like’ or ‘as’
Personification: Attributing human-like qualities to objects, ideas or animals
Prose: Lines which use a natural, unstructured rhythm, similar to speech, the mechanicals speak like this
Blank verse: Most characters speak in blank verse with rhyming couplets for key moments
Rhyming couplet: Two successive rhyming lines, which usually signal that a character has left the stage or is falling in love
Pun: A joke based on the different possible meanings of a word or the fact that there are words which sound alike but have different meanings
Soliloquy: When a character, thinking they are alone, speaks their thoughts aloud
Lists: Egeus lists love tokens, Oberon lists beasts, Hermia and Lysander list obstacles to their love. Lists often reinforce an idea.
Act: A part of the play and a tool to separate the performance and settings
Scene: A smaller part of the act defined by changing of characters.
Stage Directions: Added by the playwright to tell the actors how to move or speak
Structure
Contrast: Scenes often contrast strongly with the one that follows them, highlighting the theme of conflict
Dramatic irony: Some things are revealed to the audience before the characters, increasing tension
Play within a play: The Mechanicals perform their own play in a MSND
Characters
Theseus- Duke of Athens who has recently been married. He is very powerful in Athens.
Hippolyta- Queen of the Amazons, she is Theseus’ new bride.
Egeus- A nobleman and Hermia’s father. He wants her to marry Demetrius or be killed or sent to a convent if she refuses.
Hermia – a young Athenian woman who is in love with Lysander and runs away in the forest to marry him.
Lysander- a young Athenian man who is in love with Hermia.
Demetrius- Hermia’s suitor, Egeus wants him to marry Hermia, he follows the lovers into the forest.
Helena- Hermia’s friend who is in love with Demetrius and follows him into the forest.
Oberon- King of the fairies, he wants Titania to give him a changeling boy and seeks revenge on her.
Titania – Queen of the fairies, she refuses to give up the changeling boy and is put under a spell to fall in love with Bottom.
Robin Goodfellow/Puck- a mischievous servant of Oberon who enjoys interfering with the lives of the humans in the forest.
The Mechanicals- a group of craftsmen rehearsing a play in the forest to perform at Theseus’ wedding celebrations.
Bottom- one of the mechanicals who is arrogant and loud, he has a spell put on him to turn his head into a donkey’s head.
Symbolism
The writer uses Symbolism to present ideas or qualities.
Thesus and Hippolyta – Represent order and stability
Love Potion- Represents the fickle, erratic powerful nature of love
The Mechanicals Play- Reflects the whole play itself. Powerful emotions shown in a comical way.