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A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a play more of ideas than of characterization and plot. The play embraces the celebration of an essential fact of life, even if we demand rationality of our self in all things we are still significantly affected by aspects of existence that are not rational and beyond our control. Oberon and Titania are the king and queen of fairyland respectively. Oberon uses his magical capabilities to cast a love spell on Titania in order to win the Indian child from Titania. However, in a poignant refusal to give Oberon the child, Titania expresses many facets of the play overall. While it is impossible to state absolutely why Oberon so badly desires this boy, there are many possible interpretations from the text of Titania’s refusal. These interpretations are also significant to other aspects/themes of the play. For example, we might say Oberon’s attempt to win the child is one geared toward reinforcing his superiority over Titania. He is using his request to assert his authority. However, it is an authority Titania refuses to grant on his terms. He has failed to realize the impenetrable power of the bond formed between Titania and the boy’s dead mother, “His mother was a votaress of my order;/…And for her sake do I rear up the boy;/And for her sake I will not part with him” (II.i.123; 136-137). In other words, the boy’s mother had been a celibate and was more than likely raped by a warlord. Oberon even calls Queen Elizabeth “the imperial votaress” because she was presumed to be celibate. This celibacy and yet chattel-status of the boy’s mother enable she and Titania to form a bond of spiritual sisterhood, also a symbolism of natural fertility and fecundity—the only entities capable of forming more human beings. On the other hand, Oberon’s desire for the boy could be an allusion to the English tradition of producing a male heir as the highest good, a tradition smashed by Queen El...

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A Midsummer Night's Dream. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 07:09, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1684911.html