Titania and Oberon: Love Is a Battlefield
Comments(1) 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!
I like how you described Titania and Oberon’s relationship as a power struggle. While reading their interaction, I was amazed at how these seemingly wonderful, magical creatures could be so plagued by the very same human sensibilities that the human characters are seen struggling with. Pride, jealousy, and a need for power and acknowledgement are emotions and needs that are not controlled and thus ultimately leave them emotionally vulnerable. These passions are what cause Oberon to seek out his revenge which I thought to be very uncharacteristic of a king fairy. Their interaction and their passions greatly remind me of the ancient greek gods who were just as medelsome in the affairs of the humans in order to achieve a personal goal or need.
With all this said, I cannot help but wonder if Shakespeare wanted us to think about fate and the degree of which we hold agency in our own lives. I think that we can juxtapose their relationship with that of Theseus and Hippolyta and see the different roles that gender play. In the “real” world, a woman, even a queen like Hippolyta, has very little authority over herself. Her agency derives from within the male relationships that are established. Like Hermia who is forced to obey the will of her father, so Hippolyta is forced to obey her conqueror and future husband. In the fairy world, the outskirts of the city, we see the gender roles switch. We see Titania, a queen, exerting her own agency and not obeying the male figure in her life, her husband and king. This assertion of agency causes strife within the marriage and pushes Oberon to seek retribution.
I am curious to see whether or not Hippolyta, in the real world, will have a chance at asserting her own agency as Titania does. I feel that ultimately, the male role will reign supreme, but does it experience some enlightenment and sympathy for the female in both Hermia and Hippolyta’s case?