Midsummer Night's Dream

Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream is a comedy built around the events which take place during one fantastic night in the forest. It is a play about the strange power of dreams--a power which can transform love to loathing, heaven to hell, and men to beasts. This paper will focus on the dream within the play and, more specifically, on the attitudes and judgments of the lovers, Bottom, Theseus, and Hippolyta toward the experience, as expressed in four passages which present their varying points of view.

The first of these passages, the conversation presenting the young lovers' reaction to the night's events (4.1.180-92), is brief but telling. Demetrius, the only one still under Puck's pansy-liquor spell, remains dazed and uncertain whether the dream has actually ended. He even goes so far as to ask the others, "Are you sure/That we are awake?" (4.1.185-186). His memory is also clouded; in fact, the events of the previous night are, to him, "Like far-off mountains turned into clouds" (4.1.181). He expresses no regret about his change of fortune, however, and despite the fact that he is at a loss to explain why his affection has suddenly reverted to Helena, he seems content to love--and marry--her rather than Hermia.

The women, neither of whom had been hexed by Oberon's potion, are equally uncertain about the motives behind the night's adventures; they are, however, aware of what took place, though they seem hesitant to believe the events really happened. Both of t

Related Essays

Macbeth Supernatural .... Human. Riverhead Books, NY: 1998. Hodara, S. "A Midsummer Night's Dream." http://web.syr.edu/~shodara/midsummer.html Dec. 20, 1998 .... (3326 13 )

A Marriage Proposal, Anton Chekhov .... The idea expressed by Lysander in A Midsummer Night's Dream that "the course of true love never .... "A Marriage Proposal." In Great Writing, Harvey S. Wiener and .... (1134 5 )

Anton Chekhov and A Marriage Proposal .... The idea expressed by Lysander in A Midsummer Night's Dream that "the course of true love never .... "A Marriage Proposal." In Great Writing, Harvey S. Wiener and .... (1127 5 )

Lysander does not overtly express any reaction at all to the night's events. His only contribution to the conversation, however, is telling. When Demetrius, still trying to convince himself that he is no longer dreaming, asks whether the others saw Theseus and heard him ask them to follow him, Lysander replies, "And he did bid us follow to the temple" (4.1.190). This gentle urging toward the temple, where the lovers will be married, seems to tacitly imply that whatever Lysander may or may not recall about the previous night, he is more than happy with things as they are. It may also imply that he is ashamed of the way he acted, especially toward Hermia, and he wants to put it all behind him as quickly as possible and move forward. Taken together, the lovers' reactions to the dream are a mixture of disbelief and uneasy satisfaction (with the possible exception of Lysander, who appears content, though evidence is scant). No one is completely certain what occurred the night before, and they have to work together to convince themselves that they are awake at all (4.1.185-191). Nevertheless, there are no blatant statements of anger or resentment, though the women in particular seem to have been slightly jaded by the night's

Category: Literature - M