Roberto de Jess Daz Padilla Literature I Oct 14th, 2009

Essay on A Midsummer Nights Dream by William Shakespeare Even tough A Midsummer Nights Dream includes all the components that made up a regular love story; its way to handle those elements transforms it into something entirely different. To begin with, this Shakespearean play relies heavily on stretching the limits of credibility. Unlikely characters and frequent use of hyperbole often take common situations to settings that would seem foreign, except that beneath all that magic, there lays an unmistakably human behavior. Based on this idea, the play within a play puts it clearer that we are before a parody reflection of our own selves. Each of the steps described to carry out the play complement, to a certain extent, what occurs elsewhere in A Midsummer Nights Dream. And the fact that the comedy-tragedy of Pyramus and Thisby takes place in a separate act also gives the sense of being an epilogue, which summarizes what has happened in previous acts and provides a well-rounded conclusion to it. It is relevant to mention that the actors who would perform at Theseus and Hypolitas wedding belong to a lower social level. They are far from the luxuries of the luxuries of the Duke and Duchess and even further from the joyful lifestyle of the fairies. As their names show, these people work with they tools they have at hand; so, in this case, they have no experience in acting whatsoever and they have to come up with their unique interpretation of what a theatrical production is like. The lack of experience in the workers eventually ends up misshaping the original premise of their play. In the beginning, the story deals with a love situation to the one Lysander and Hermia are undergoing: the parents of the leading couple oppose their relationship, and thus, they try to keep them from meeting each other. In later acts, many of the roles first assigned are eliminated or substituted by the representation of inanimate objects, as Bottom suggests: Some man or other must present Wall: and let him have some plaster or some loan, or some rough-cast about him, to signify wall; and let him hold his fingers thus, and through that cranny shall Pyramus and Thisby whisper.1

What appeared as a decent drama about the difficulties and harsh times inherent to love, ends up being a ridicule depiction of romantic affairs. When the four Athenian lovers witness the play they joke at the absurd situations portrayed in it, but they do not realize they were the subjects of another very absurd happening the night before. The parallel between storylines goes beyond the four young Athenians. The main chaotic events and misunderstanding in the play come from the flawed decisions of the rude mechanicals, but also from Pucks mistakes in the use of potions to manipulate feelings: Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook. / Did not you tell me I should know the man/ By the Athenian garment be had on?/ And so far blameless proves my enterprise,/ That I have nointed an Athenians eyes;/ And so far am I glad it so did sort/ As their jangling I esteem a sport.2 When both groups (workers and fairies) meet, the most shocking of those disorders occurs. Bottom is the target of a metaphor turned into reality, as his stubborn attitude is matched with the head of an ass. However, Titania Queen of the fairies and the epitome of beauty, under the influence of a charm, falls in love with that horrifying being in a scene that proves the high amount of contrasts and comparisons which underlay A Midsummer Nights Dream. In the last act, all the confusions have been cleared and the order is restored. The Athenian lovers and Bottom, who were invited to Hypolyta and Theseus marriage, think they just went through a dream, as if nothing of the situations occurred during the middle acts had ever happened. The amateur actors present their play before the wedding couples with unfortunate results. The consequences of all the changes in the script is a theatrical piece that is self-aware of its condition and even aims at clarifying the obvious, such as Lions speech: You, ladies, you, whose gentle hearts do fear/ The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor,/ May now perchance both quake and tremble here/ When lion rough in wildest rage doth roar./ Then know that I, one Snug the joiner, am/ A lion-fell, nor else no lions dam;/ For, if I should as lion come in strife/ Into this place, twere pity on my life.3

This crossing between the boundaries of reality and fiction could very well aim at asking how much of what we have read is a lie and how much is actually true to human behavior. In conclusion, it must be said that the inclusion of an internal play in A Midsummer Nights Dream has a great impact on the comprehension of it as a piece of satire. The eccentric performance put up by the amateur actors, references, in a subtle way, the unusual phenomenon that is human love relationships. While the main plot deals with love triangles and potions, the mini-play also materializes (in a not so graceful fashion) some other stereotypes, such as the wall that prevents the lovers to mutually express their passion; or the moonshine, covering them with its light in the middle of the night. By including all these clichs, A Midsummer Nights Dream leaves out the usual view of love as something admirable and powerful, to replace it with an aura of strangeness and embarrassment. In addition to its thematic function, the rude mechanicals play works structurally, as it moves simultaneously with the external play. For that reason, both get to a climax at the same time and, in the last act, one play announces the ending of the other.

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Act iii, Scene i, 67-71 Act iii, Scene ii, 347-353 3 Act v, Scene i, 219-226