On A MidSummer Night’s Dream

A MidSummer Night’s Dream is one of Shakespeare’s most popular and famous plays. Wriiten in 1595 or 1596 after Romeo and Juliet, it was dedicated to a wedding of aristocrats. Despite its simplicity, it’s most funny and readable, often quoted as Shakespeare’s most successful comedy.

It’s amazing that the image of the tiny, butterfly-winged faries is said to be first drawn up in this play and even Walt Disney was inspired by it. Besides, it consists of many imaginary and fantastic elements which make it more like a tale rather than a play.

The Sleeping Titiania, the queen of fairyland

Plot and Characters

Theseus, Duke of Athens, is about to marry Hippolyta, a lady warrior in Amazon who he conquered. Egeus came to him for advance celebration and told about his trouble that his daughter Hermia refused to marry Demetrius with whom she was supposed to make family because she fell in love with another man, Lysander. Theseus advised Hermia to better think about her idea or she might be punished by the law while she and Lysander decided to run away from Athens. Hermia told Helena about their departure who tells Demetrius in order too please him. Hermia and Lysander flee into the woods, Demetrius followed the lovers, and Helena followed him.

Titiania fell in love with Bottom in Donkey head

In the forest, Oberon and Tatiana, king and queen of fairyland had quarreled over who should own the servant boy. Oberon came up with an idea to give her a lesson. He asked Puck to find a magic flower whose juice can make a person fall in love with the one he or she sees first upon awakening. Puck found the flower and applied to sleeping Tatiana.

Oberon and Puck were thinking how to punish the proud queen

Oberon then tells Puck to apply it to Demetrius, so that he could fall in love with Helena. However, Puck mistook Lysander for Demetrius and some how make both men in love with Helena. This caused quarrels between these men and women. In the meantime, a group of folks came in to the forest to rehearse the play prepared for Thesue’s wedding. Tatiana happened to wake up when one of the folks, Bottom passed by with a donkey head on him and immediately fell in love with him. Seeing all this confusion, Oberon decided to put all the things right with magic. There were triple wedding that day and the play by those folks was performed. Despite the poor performance, Theseus and the others appreciated the sincerity and efforts.

Love Affairs

The whole story is full of love between a number of couples, and Shakespeare pointed out the power of love dramatically – you are always insane when you are in love. Theseus fell in love with his former enemy Hipplyata; Hermia and Lysander managed to escape from Athens for their mighty love; Hermia’s hatred seem to make Demetrius love her; Helena loves Demetrius despite his wired taste of women, etc. The play is just a presentation of behaviors of couples in reality, in an exaggerated way though. I enjoy the irrational actions by them, which made me aware of the impulse in love is the energy of tender love.

Dreams

‘I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was: man is but an ass, if he go about to expound the dreams.’ ——Bottom

The story itself can be described as a dram: all sorts of fantasy, the existence of fairies and paradox between couples. It’s just agreeable mixture of small pieces of mind from Shakespeare. That’s why we can’t find great thoughts in this play, as Bottom had stated. It’s all about dreams, Shakespeare has the power to create such dreams, and so we call him William Shakespeare.

This is the first comedy I’ve ever read by Shakespeare. I feel quite contented with his play (In fact, it is made up with poems). Maybe it’s a good point to gain insights into English literature.
Many critics attempted to explore more from this short play such as religious and so on as they did in his other works. I consider the efforts meaningless, since it’s just a MidSummer Night’s Dream.