Themes
It is believed that William Shakespeare wrote “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” between 1590 and 1596. Categorised as a comedy it is one of his most popular stage works and has been widely performed across the world.
LoveA Midsummer Night's Dream deals with many themes, the most apparent of which is that of love. Not only is there an idea that love will ultimately triumph over all, the play also highlights the pitfalls that love can present most especially when it is out of balance. Lysander’s comments “The course of true love never did run smooth,” articulate the difficulty of love.
Though most of the conflict in the play stems from the troubles of romance, it is not truly a love story; it distances the audience from the emotions of the characters in order to poke fun at the torments and afflictions suffered by those in love. The theme of love’s difficulty is often explored through the motif of love out of balance. The prime instance of this imbalance is the love triangle among the four young Athenians: Hermia loves Lysander, Lysander loves Hermia, Helena loves Demetrius, and Demetrius loves Hermia instead of Helena, leaving one woman with too many suitors and one with too few. Certainly for these characters, falling in and out of love (mainly through Puck's error) is never a smooth transition. As long as there is no balance in the love, the happy ending cannot be achieved. The tone of the play is so light hearted that the audience never doubts that things will end happily. Once the lovers' tangle of pairings is resolved and there are two balanced couples, then the happy ending is achieved. |
MagicThe fairies’ magic, which brings about many of the most bizarre and hilarious situations in the play, is another element central to the fantastic atmosphere of the play. Shakespeare uses magic both to embody the almost supernatural power of love (symbolized by the love potion) and to create a surreal world. Although the misuse of magic causes chaos, as when Puck mistakenly applies the love potion to Lysander’s eyelids, magic ultimately resolves the play’s tensions by restoring love to balance among the quartet of Athenian youths. Additionally, the ease with which Puck uses magic to his own ends, as when he reshapes Bottom’s head into that of an ass and recreates the voices of Lysander and Demetrius, stands in contrast to the laboriousness and gracelessness of the craftsmen’s attempt to stage their play.
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DreamsAs the title suggests, dreams are an important theme in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; they are linked to the bizarre, magical mishaps in the forest. Hippolyta’s first words in the play evidence the prevalence of dreams (“Four days will quickly steep themselves in night, Four nights will quickly dream away the time”), and various characters mention dreams throughout.
The theme of dreaming recurs predominantly when characters attempt to explain bizarre events in which they are involved: “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 t’expound this dream,” Bottom says, unable to fathom the magical happenings that have affected him as anything but the result of slumber. Shakespeare is also interested in the actual workings of dreams, in how events occur without explanation, time loses its normal sense of flow, and the impossible occurs as a matter of course; he seeks to recreate this environment in the play through the intervention of the fairies in the magical forest. At the end of the play, Puck extends the idea of dreams to the audience members themselves, saying that, if they have been offended by the play, they should remember it as nothing more than a dream. This sense of illusion is crucial to the atmosphere of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as it helps render the play a fantastical experience rather than a heavy drama. |
LanguageIn Midsummer Night’s Dream, bombast (boastful language) is used most often by Bottom as a humorous indication of his arrogant stupidity and ignorance. For example, he says that he will play the lion’s part and roar so convincingly that the Duke will tell him to roar “again and again.” He also uses it when he is with the fairy queen by constantly boasting of his qualities. He seems to always be uttering some absurdly over-exaggerated statement and this is why his character is so funny! By using bombast so often with in the character of Bottom, Shakespeare sets the almost exaggerated tone of the whole play. Things happen so quickly, so strangely, and so unexpectedly in the play, that it seems to parallel the strange, humorous, bombastic speeches of Bottom.
Also adding much comedy to the play is the use of malapropism (the misuse of words). Mainly used by the “rude mechanicals” one example of this element of language is the way Quince uses the wrong order of words in the sentences he speaks when introducing their play to the Duke in the final scene. By putting periods in the middle of sentences and mixing up the whole passage, using words in wrong order, thereby changing their meaning, he makes a humorous blunder of wording. There are many other instances in which he, Bottom, and the other mechanicals use the wrong words, like when Bottom says “defect” when the correct word is “effect”. All these misuses of words cause the mechanicals to seem significantly more ignorant than the other characters. This is another way humour is conveyed in the play: we laugh at the absurdity of a powerful fairy queen falling in love with a stupidly ignorant, ass-headed mechanical, ignoring his misuse of language. |
IronyIrony is the contrast of one thing in relation to another. It can be both verbal and dramatic. Verbal irony is where something is said while the speaker intends another meaning besides the obvious. Examples of this occur when Theseus and company frequently make fun of the mechanicals’ performance. They state the obvious, while often meaning something deeper that the mechanicals often miss. Dramatic irony is when one scene, event, or line contrasts sharply with another. For example, the instant change in Demetrius’ attitude towards Helena is ironic – he says he cannot possibly love her, then becomes madly in love with her. Lysander likewise says he could never cease to love Hermia, then falls madly for Helena. In this example, irony is both humorous and tragic. Humorous because for Helena, the sudden change of events is good. Tragic because they are not so great for Hermia.
Again, this use of irony is what makes A Midsummer Night’s Dream both comic and tragic. It is highly comical when confusion reigns, yet it is also sobering and tragic to realize the extreme chaos and randomness everything experiences in the play. |