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.