When we first meet Shylock in Act I, Scene iii, he comes across as a nasty, difficult, and greedy businessman.  It is quite clear that the main reason Shylock doesn’t get along with Antonio and Bassanio is due to religious differences.  Although the two men are obviously anti-Semitic, it isn’t a one-sided prejudice.  Shylock hates them for their Christianity, too — “I hate him for he is a Christian,” he says of Antonio (p16).  But as the scene progresses, we see that he is bitter because of their initial dislike for him being a Jew.  Initially, when Shylock speaks, he does appear to be the villain.  But really, I believe he’s just angry for the way he has been treated for being Jewish.  Shylock is simply acting this way in defense.

Continuing in Act II, we see how everyone is against Shylock.  His servant, Launcelot, does not like him — probably because he doesn’t like the idea of answering to a Jew as his master.  “Certainly the Jew is the very devil incarnation,” he says of Shylock (p24).  Shylock has trouble getting respect from his own servant because of his religion.

Overall, despite Shylock being the mean, “villain Jew,” I completely sympathize with him.  He is striving to live and work and remain strong in an anti-Semitic world.  Everyone is automatically against hum because he is Jewish.  Anything that Shylock says or does that seems nasty and cruel, in my opinion, is his defense mechanism.  Shylock wants to be respected and maybe even feared because otherwise, he’ll be mistreated and kicked around even more than he already is.  Even his own daughter, Jessica, is somewhat ashamed of him and of being Jewish.  In Act II, when planning to elope with Lorenzo, she says she is going to become a “Christian wife” for him.  Evidently, it is a harsh world for Jews to live in, and Shylock is just trying to hold his own.

Throughout the play, there doesn’t seem to be any major climaxes—seeing how it would be a bit difficult with there being about 4 separate groups with 4 separate motives and conflicts. Especially Theseus and Hippolyta, who conveniently sneak out of the play during all the drama and make their grand entrance when all is back to how it was—except the fact that the fairies forgot to lift the love juice that was smeared over Demetrius’ eyes. Which was just a convenient way to pair off the young adults nice and neat.

Which is why I thought the resolution to the play was a bit annoying. There was never any threat or real conflict because magic could simply fix it. It sorely reminded me of American Horror Story: Coven, where there were lots of witches  with magic. And because some of them had the power of resurgence (bringing back the dead), when a character died you didn’t get that OH NO!!! feeling. You just casually wondered who would be the one to bring them back and how deep in the episode would they get around to doing it—of course it was still a pretty great show.

Although the plot was cleaned up too abruptly, in my opinion. I’m still liking the play and I’m excited for what’s left: A Rude Mechanical Production. I’m hoping it’ll be something like one of the greatest and iconic endings of all time… Shrek 2‘s “I Need a Hero” scene (which is technically the penultimate scene), because it was funny and had a great song-and-dance number—and who doesn’t love that?

Nick Bottom or Bottom, can be argued to be the glue that holds the play (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) together. Bottom sits in the very center the arguments and tricks of the fairies,  the conversations and marriage of the lovers and even the complications within his own acting troupe. He appears in almost every scene and appears on stage with every single character at one point or another. Bottom has his head transformed into a Donkey’s(pardon the pun but I guess you can say he was talking out of his ass afterwards) and becomes the subject of adoration of the bewitched Titania. The title of the play may well refer to the the scene where Titania surrounds bottom with the wonders of the fairy world.

Bottom is the play’s fool. he is loud, uncouth and never hesitant to interject his own “wisdom” into someone else’s conversions or acting. However, unlike many of the other characters in the play, like Oberon and Titania, Bottom is never afraid to speak his mind and be true to himself. even with a terrible performance Pyramus and Thisbe, at the end of the play, Bottom is completely satisfied with simply being true to himself. He plays his role with passion and fervor despite his clearly awful acting.

My question is: what is your opinion of Bottom’s truth that he so proudly parades about. What do you think of how it contrasts the other characters who reserve their emotions or hide them in the woods (the lovers)?

Titania Adoring the Ass-headed Bottom. 

By Henry Fuseli 1790

Oil on canvas

In Acts 1 and 2 of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare presents his readers with two supernatural characters, Titania and Oberon, who are also King and Queen of the Faeries. I imagined them to be beautiful, regal, and surrounded by their respective trains of attending faeries. What I didn’t completely understand, however, was why Titania and Oberon fought so adamantly with each other over the “changeling,” or the little boy that was stolen from an Indian king (2.1.23). Why couldn’t Oberon just find another little boy to be his page? It seemed really strange to me that the two of them fought over the child like parents in a custody battle.

I understand that both characters have their motives for keeping the kid to him or herself. For example, Titania makes it clear that she promised to raise the child after his mother died in childbirth (2.1.135-137). On the other hand, Oberon desperately wants the boy to act as his “henchman” (2.1.120) and be the “knight of his train to trace the forests wild” (2.1.25). I just don’t understand why Titania and Oberon quarrel and go to great lengths to try and keep the boy for him or herself. In Act 2, they try to outsmart each other by using the pansy, but end up negatively affecting other characters such as Helena and Lysander.

Going back to the child, I think that he is representative of an object that is to be obtained in Titania and Oberon’s power struggle against each other. It’s weird to me that although the King and Queen are married, they act in opposition to each other and all they do is argue. Also, they don’t even sleep in the same bed! (Titania sleeps in another part of the forest with her troupe.) This being said, I think that this power struggle over the boy is just a surface issue that is masking a deeper conflict between the faerie king and queen. I think that this conflict has to do with Titania and Oberon’s past relationship to Theseus and Hippolyta, though I am not entirely sure what it is. Did Titania and Oberon have romantic or sexual feelings for Theseus and Hippolyta in the past? For example, Titania calls Hippolyta Oberon’s “buckskinned mistress” and “warrior love” (2.1.71). Oberon retaliates and exclaims, “I know thy love to Theseus…” (2.1.76). What is Oberon and Titania’s relationship to Theseus and Hippolyta, and is it truly romantic and/or sexual? How does this impact their marriage? What do you make of their quarrel over the little Indian boy?

Faeries!