Category Archives: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

The Wit-less Woods

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romantic comedy, The role of the imagination

There is a loss of logic and knowledge within the woods of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Shakespeare draws a certain parallel relationship between the loving relationships that form in the forest and the stupidity that comes with it. Bottom emphasizes this notion when he says, “…if I had wit enough to get out of this wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn” to which Titania replies, “Out of this wood do not desire to go” (3.1.150-153). However, there is wisdom in this kind of blind love and by making a mockery of it, the author alludes to the notion that maybe when it comes to matters of the heart, there is no atypical wisdom behind it.

Guided by a magical realm, the lovers’ tangled emotional web is immune to religion, political ties, race, age, or even species discrimination. When love is left with no restrictive boundaries, is falling in love simpler? The answer to this is complicated, as are most Shakespearean themes. However, it seems that with no definitive limitations to the heart, humans are unable to grasp a logical explanation as to why they feel this way. The boundaries of the heart exist for a psychological satisfaction, it would seem. That without them, a person loses all wit and orientation, looking for a way out of their mental wilderness. The lovers are only able to guide themselves to their city homes by defining their relationships with socially acceptable definitions. Anything they could not describe, they left in the woods.

Dream, reality, and somewhere in between

A Midsummer Night's Dream, The role of the imagination, Tragicomedy, ,

Even in a dreamlike world of commoners, lovers, and fairies, different levels of reality still exist. The most believable plot involves the relationship between Theseus and Hippolyta. The duke “wooed” her with his sword and now gets to marry his prize. Naturally, Hippolyta is neither eager nor ecstatic to marry her victor as she is a strong-headed Amazon woman. It will come as no surprise if Theseus “breaks his faith” again as he had done before. Relationships that resemble that of Theseus and Hippolyta are not uncommon in their time.

At the other end of the reality spectrum, there is Oberon and Titania’s fantastical relationship. They are volatile characters that resort to magic to solve their issues. Oberon not only wishes his wife to fall in love with a vile creature but he also steals the changeling from her. After all the strange events, Titania and Oberon exit the stage in unity. Their relationship is unrealistic to say the least.

In between reality and fantasy, there are the four Athenian lovers and the mechanicals. Hermia and Lysander are deeply in love for reasons unknown to the audience while Helena blindly pursues Demetrius despite his cruel responses. They are blissfully and naively in love. Just as naïve are the workers who persuade themselves that they are worthy of performing at the duke’s wedding. These groups of characters have no control over their fates. Demetrius only falls in love with Helena because of the “love juice” and the workers’ play only gets chosen because of its absurdity. Despite their difference in class, the Athenians and the workers are all puppets within the play.

A Lover’s Dilemma

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Generic characteristics, Imagery, Romantic comedy

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a tale of chaos and order, light and dark, sane and insane. The setting and environment help the reader understand the emotions the actors were portraying as they entered the woods.  Demetrius’ line 192 of Act 2 demonstrates his feelings as he enters the woods, “and here I am, and wood within this wood.” Here he means that he feels confused as if his transition to the woods has brought about this change.

Shakespeare sets the scene where the young lovers are out in the woods  unsure of their love. Puck the mystical fairy organizer even takes a jab at this by confusing the lovers with the spraying of his magical juice. Shakespeare takes you along this mystical journey into the woods and you are as lost as the characters.

The characters are Shakespeare’s version of young immature teens searching for love. The characters in the play old or young, mortal or immortal all become immature due to the chains of love.  Oberon, the mighty King of the fairies and Titania, Queen of the fairies are constantly at each other’s throats over the young changeling. Shakespeare captures the tension by having both enter the play from different sides. He then leads us to see the growing resentment in Oberon when he sets his henchmen Puck to spray into the Queen’s eyes and trick her into loving a transformed donkey. This immaturity is very strange and Shakespeare makes a mockery of the “love” going around.

The Curious Case of Nick Bottom?

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Generic characteristics, Tragicomedy

The character of the “fool” has been a major staple within Shakespearean literature, as it presents a character that is “ahead of the curve”. Through several of his playwrights, regardless of the overall tone of his story, Shakespeare creatively found a way to insert a character that is so unique and unorthodox that the reader can’t help but gravitate to said character. A perfect demonstration of such a person is Nick Bottom from within  A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Bottom (as Shakespeare so eloquently titles him throughout the play) is introduced as an immature, cocky, and jackass (both figuratively and literally) of a human being. His mindset is transfixed on the notion that he knows all compared to his other craftsmen counterparts. The true comedy roots from his total obliviousness to his animalistic transformation that occurs during the 3rd Act of the playwright. Shakespeare intentionally turns the characters head into that of a donkey, and therefore the effect the term “jackass” now has become a triple entendre (i.e. the relation to the characters name being “Bottom”, his head now being an actual Donkey a.k.a an ass, and the simple fact that his personality is that of a jackass unto itself).

Without a doubt this was extremely clever scripting by Shakespeare, but the true genius of this character comes towards the end of the play as one see’s the interesting transformation of Bottom. The interesting transformation is that there is no transformation; none of personality, action, or revelation. Aside from his brief change in physical appearance, the man we meet in the beginning of the story is the exact same man we are left with when the curtains close. THAT is what make this character so intriguing; the simple fact that within this play every person that wakes up from their “dream state” goes through some change in character but this one man. It seems that his foolishness is actually a synonym for a strong sense of wisdom. Bottom is able to remain true to his self regardless of the outlandish circumstances; he is also the only person to be aware of both the fairy world and the “real” world. If being a fool allows me to remain myself through the most drastic of situation then color me an insane fool. And with that I leave you with this:

“A Fool Thinks Himself To Be Wise, But A Wise Man Knows Himself To Be A FOOL”-Will Shakespeare.

Two Couples, Not Alike

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Psychological states, Romantic comedy

Though much of the comedy in A Midsummer Night’s Dream comes from the confusion that ensues between the four young lovers, I have to admit that their maturity and conviction at the beginning of the play is quite impressive to me. Hermia and Lysander seem so sure of their love for one another (that Hermia is willing to defy  her father and face potential celibacy or death to protect it.)

It is was when Lysander stated  “the course of love never did run smooth” that I felt it appropriate to take their characters and their love for each other seriously (as silly as it later becomes). Lysander expresses his understanding that the journey of love is never an easy one, yet he remains committed still. Knowing the hardships they will have to face, Hermia and Lysander make a vow of love to each other.

The next couple we are introduced to is Oberon and Titania who, while committed to each other by marriage, no longer seem a committed couple at all. As Puck explains, “And now they never meet in grove or green.” The two even come from separate entrances and seemingly cannot stand the sight of each other. Oberon even performs cruel tricks and spells on his once love.  By comparison the love between Hermia and Lysander seems far stronger than that of Oberon and Titania.

All that being sad, I think that these couples, being at different stages in their lives and at different ages, only reflect a common theme in reality: love is often  strongest when it is young .

 

Shakespeare disorients you in the most entertaining way.

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Psychological states, Romantic comedy, The role of the imagination

One of the things that I found the most compelling about A Midsummer Night’s Dream is how hysterically disorienting it can be. That goes for much more than the blatant confusions of the fairy-engineered chaos that ensues in acts two, three, and four. It really is not hard to catch yourself trying to figure out minor details, such as the moon position, and how it could possibly have such a prevalent theme of moonlight despite Theseus’ comments of, “four happy days to bring in another moon” to denote the time of the ceremonies.

Perhaps liberties were taken for the theme of moonlight, or there are alternate ways of interpreting what Theseus meant, but it would not be surprising if either were the case. Both fit into how disorienting it can be by adding to the numerous dualities in the play: sanity and insanity, civilization and wilderness, elite and commoner, and, of course, the confusion these dualities cause. I cannot imagine where we would be without the moon as a perfect scapegoat to explain the actions of the four youths in the woods and the mysterious disappearance of Bottom. Let’s also not forget about how disorienting of a time the players must have had trying to pull a performance together with their lead character off in the woods with a fairy queen and a horse head.

And, of course, what better to include in a play centered on marriage and love than a prominent theme of disorientation?  I would assume that it is safe to say that Shakespeare sought out to comment on the inner-complexities of love in this play in the same was as he did so with dreams and social standings. Whether it is Hermia and Helena caustically doting over each other’s opposing features, or subtle commentary on two men falling for the same woman, Shakespeare does not shy away from tackling dense topics in order to delve into social ideas that are certainly not unique or confined to the setting of the play. It makes these characters very real and believable in the cleverest of ways, and even gives a brief second of clarity, just as the last act of the play seems to do.

Is a Dream a Dream, or a Dreamed Reality?

A Midsummer Night's Dream, The role of the imagination

I viewed A Midsummer Night’s Dream as an easy-to-relate-to Shakespearean play, having read his other works. There are elements to this play that ring true for that time period and ours. As long as we can remember there have been stories of love and fights in honor of protecting love. In this play elements of fantasy are weaved into the fabric of the play. So much so they make appearances where it seems uncommon for them to be.

At the end of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Puck comes on to the stage and states to the audience.

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles do not reprehend.
If you pardon, we will mend.

Pucks is telling the audience that if they did not enjoy the show imagine it but a dream and it will all be ok. This is the final reinforcement on the importance of dreams  in relation to this play. If something doesn’t please you assume that it is a dream and that will bring peace to your mind.  A dream is an escape from reality or reality is the escape from the dream. Love is an escape and sometimes it’s an escape from reality as well. The things that you may have seen and believed are nothing more than fantasy taking over in love sometimes as well as when you view a play. Even if real emotions are evoked as they often are in dreams they’re separate and a fading escape from reality. This is what stood out to me most the idea of the mystical fairies along side the human reality. The fairies living and affecting the outcome of the human beings. Yet their impact could be viewed as a dream and not as the reality presented.

The eyes have it.

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Imagery

Something that caught my eye (har-har) about A Midsummer Night’s Dream is the repeating motif of the eyes. Whether they are being magically corrupted by fairies, tricked the moon or referred to in a great and concise image, the eyes are subject to a formidable amount of literary experimenting on behalf of Shakespeare. Spoiler alert, eyes take on a significant meaning in King Lear too, so it is interesting to see how his earlier treatment of the visual organs is much more…gentle.

We’ve heard the trite line that the eyes represent the window to a human’s soul, so perhaps it is this easy opening that allows transformation to take place for the love-struck visitors and occupants of the woods. Eyes are also organs that take in light, which means they would be the most susceptible to the change from day to night. This fits with the repeating underlining of the difference between night and day in the play. There would have not been the same effect to the magic if say Puck spoke a magic word and knocked Demetrius over the head with a rock. The selection of the eyes is significant in more than one way.

One of the things that love transforms in the play is perception. To indulge my response with another well-known cliché: beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Not only do the eyes leave humans vulnerable by opening up the soul, they are themselves known to function differently when “love” becomes a factor.

A very popular line from the play, spoken by Helena, is:

“Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind.” (Act 1, scene 1 line 234)

What I can take away from this is that the surge of emotions that come from looking at a person is not love; it might feel like it, it might sound like it, but it is not love. When the bewitched Lysander gazed upon Helena affectionately or Titania doted upon the ass that is Bottom, it was not from love or from the mind. The eyes opened them to affection and passion, to the guise of love.  As seen from the comical situation that the couples in the play find themselves in, there’s much more to love that what can be perceived through eyes.  Sometimes, only magic can explain why a powerful female would fall in love for a character like Bottom.

The visual elements of Midsummer.

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Costumes and props, Stage techniques

The tone and feeling of the play are heavily affected by the visual representations of the characters in Midsummer Night’s Dream. In particular the depiction of the character Bottom is a very important element of each performance. Looking at different pictures online show various representations of the character.   Even with the same dialogue these visual depictions and the way the actor performs will create drastically different experiences.

Professor Berggren mentioned the portrayal where Bottom is shown with a tremendous phallus. How different is Bottom’s dialogue when given with the distraction of a giant waggling penis rather than just the implication of one? This is part of the magic of the theater in that each run of a play can be an entirely new experience. Each of the major characters in the play have the potential to present themselves entirely differently depending on the visual design in a way no regular reading can depict. Does anyone have one version they consider more valid than others? Any more thoughts on the visual experience of theater?

A more comedic take.

Too normal?
More animal-like. Could have done without the image of Judi Dench sexing up this donkey; but we all suffer for art right?