Preview

A Midsummer Nights Dream

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1570 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
A Midsummer Nights Dream
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a classic Shakespearean romantic comedy, which attempts to touch the viewer’s heart through its light hearted characters with the combination of love and humor. It is light-hearted through the placement of the characters in humorous situations. There is slight character development and no true protagonist, but critics commonly agree to Puck being the most significant character in the play; where Bottom is the “butt” of his own jokes, Puck is the primary driving force of the plot. It’s Puck’s mischief that begins the chaos and his playful character that sets the tone of the play. Puck, a clever fairy, always fixes the problems he creates, and messes with the ignorant characters, which initiates many of the play’s events with his misuse of his magic, pranking the human characters.
Puck's role as a comedian is largely played out as the instigator of pranks and mischief, given power by his status as a well-known fairy associated with Oberon and Titania. Puck is in control of the comedy and all of his jokes are intentional and clever, usually at the expense of another. And although he has created all that chaos, at the end he resolves his mistakes by restoring the love balance in the two couples of lovers, impossible without his intervention. Shakespeare gives Puck the final speech in the epilogue, which is usually saved for the main protagonist. A Midsummer Night’s Dream can be summed up by the last stanza of the play, spoken by Puck "If we shadows have offended think but this and all is mended: that you have slumb'red here and idle theme No more yielding but a dream gentles do not reprehend: IF you pardon, we will mend and as I am an honest Puck, if we have unearned luck Now scape the serpents tongue we will make amends ere long ;else the Puck al lair call Give me your hands, if we be friends and Robin shall restore amends” (5.2.392-407). Puck speaks these lines to address to the audience near the end of A Midsummer Night’s Dream,

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    The play, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" by William Shakespeare, is about four lovers and their "dreamlike" adventure through a fairy ruled forest. There are many different characters in this play and they each play their own individual role in how the play is performed and read. Three main characters that showed great characteristics are: Puck, Tom Bottom, and Helena. The play, "A Midsummer Nights Dream" by William Shakespeare, uses characters and their conflicts to give meaning to this piece of literature.…

    • 1161 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    In A Midsummer Night 's Dream, Shakespeare creates in Bottom, Oberon, and Puck distinctive characters who represent different aspects of himself. Like Bottom, Shakespeare aspires to rise socially; he has ambitions, and interacts with the queen, however marginally. Through Bottom, Shakespeare mocks these pretensions within himself. Then again, Shakespeare also resembles Oberon, controlling the magic we see on the stage; unseen, he and Oberon pull the strings that make the characters act as they do and say what they say. And finally, Shakespeare is like Puck, standing back from the other characters, able to see their weaknesses and laugh at them, and enjoying some mischief…

    • 2105 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout the play A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare uses both fate and free will to present his philosophy towards the nature of love. The characters struggle through confusion and conflicts to be with the one they love. Although the course of their love did not go well, love ultimately triumphs over all at the end of the play. The chaos reaches a climax causing great disruption among the lovers. However, the turmoil is eventually resolved by Puck, who fixes his mistake. The confusion then ends and the lovers are with their true love. Throughout the play Shakespeare's philosophy was displayed in various scenes, and his concept still holds true in modern society.…

    • 1193 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Shakespeare’s most popular play, A Midsummer Night’s dream, is a romantic comedy that features young lovers that fall deeply in and out of love in a brief period of time. This play is unique because it demonstrates tragedy and comedy at the same time. The comedy not only provides amusement and laughter but also helps ease tension between characters. In the play, A “Midsummer Night’s Dream”, William Shakespeare produces a comedy through foolish characters and mistaken identities.…

    • 569 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Future events are often shown throughout dreams, and dreams often provide a mirror image of what is occurring in real life. Dreams help transition characters and periods in the story. Reality also reflects perspective and circumstance and it is important to keep the character’s background in mind when reading and analyzing A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Shakespeare closes the play with a speech given by Puck, reinforcing the dream imagery found throughout the play and encouraging the reader to look at their own life critically and think about negative events in their life as dreams as…

    • 728 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As Lysander says, "The course of true love never did run smooth." Love in A Midsummer Night's Dream is portrayed as complicated and difficult, yet Shakespeare does it in a way that is humorous and lighthearted. In this play love often brings out the worst in people, yet in the end it's what brings everyone back together. Love has the ability to spellbind people as Shakespeare represents symbolically through Puck's actions, and we see how intensely complicated it can be when it nearly tears apart Hermia's family and causes argument between the four main human characters. The four types of love, forced love, parental love, romantic love and complicated love permeate all aspects of life in this play and we see the awesome power it has over human emotion, psychology, and behavior.…

    • 863 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Manipulation Of Love And

    • 971 Words
    • 3 Pages

    A Midsummer Night's Dream is a tale involving the manipulation of love and the way love works itself out between various sets of people. It tells the story of characters that encounter chaotic situations of real love and also love that was controlled for the benefit of others. The characters caught up in the "love scandal"� are Oberon, Titania, Demetrius, Lysander, Hermia, and Helena. All these characters were involved in the different triangles of love presented in the story. The main theme in A Midsummer Nights Dream is the manipulation of love and how occasionally it takes time get the path of love on the right track.…

    • 971 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A Midsummer Night Dream is a play written by the late William Shakespeare. This play is about a love triangle how one loves the other when the other does not like them until finally it all ends in a resolution, as they have a secret fairy world looking over at them, this play is almost like a mix between the fantasy world and the real! Bottom is one of the characters in this play, and in this play Bottom is a humorous and confident character, although being intelligent in other fields Bottom is not a very clever or educated man. Bottom and his fellow workmates are named the “rude mechanicals”, unsophisticated men but rather great tradesmen, working not with the mind but with the hands, though Bottom may be labeled a “rude mechanical” in many…

    • 709 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    A Midsummer Night's Dream is one of Shakespeare's most popular and frequently performed comical plays (Berardinelli). The play transformed into a cinematic production by Michael Hoffman has not changed in its basic plot and dialogue, but the setting and some character traits have. The play setting has been gracefully moved from 16th century Greece to 19th century Tuscany (Berardinelli). The addition of bicycles to the play affects the characters in that they no longer have to chase each other around the woods, but can take chase in a more efficient fashion. As far as characters are concerned, Demetrius is no longer the smug and somewhat rude character we find in act 1, scene 1 (Shakespeare pg. 6, line 91), but rather a seemingly indifferent gentleman placed in an unfortunate circumstance set to delay his wedding to Hermia. Perhaps the most noticeable change in the character set from stage to film occurs in the characters of Puck and Nick Bottom.…

    • 1464 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Comedy in A Midsummer Night's Dream is confined to the conservative oppression of women and contrived by the ironic licensed anarchist figure of Puck which while delights us with donkey kisses and lovers' mishaps, are neatly portioned within a common structure of society, agreeing with the hypothesis. The play is driven by a logical rhythm of conflict to harmony and its comedy remains in the temporary middle state of the 'Green World' preventing chaos from ensuing outside of these boundaries and therefore conserving it to rules and regulations. However, Shakespeare also utilises this simple structure in order for the audience to doubt its seemingly seamless ending as its accessibility allows us to question the events and attitudes of the play, using comedy as a tool to provoke radical thought. The irrational forest trope and lower class fool stereotype appear to be unsurprising but these conservative ideas are extended in giving them crucial roles in the unfolding of events and showing truth between the hypocrisy of others, rather than continuing the trope and just merely being a simple comedic release for the audience. Therefore, comedy's universality allows Shakespeare to convey profound ideas effectively, using the topsy-turvy world to provoke questions in the audience, making 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' truly radical.…

    • 1483 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Puck is a complicated being. He is always looking for trouble in every situation. the truth about where he is and his roles in the play.…

    • 617 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Michael Gow Journey

    • 3021 Words
    • 13 Pages

    Gow has set up a simple story set in the late 1960’s about three different families with their own sets of issues taking a holiday at the end of the school year. Although this particular journey may seem to be a physical journey, it’s simply a metaphor for the inner journey that each character from each family takes to reach a stage of restoration and hope. From the very beginning of the play Gow incorporates “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” into his own work by beginning his own drama with the ending of Shakespeare’s play with the character Tom playing “Puck”. This is extremely significant as Gow uses his play as a comparison or rather an appropriation of Shakespeare’s drama using Tom as the centre of activity and the character that initiates action. This interweaves beautifully with the character Puck as he is the fairy that directs the other fairies in Shakespeare’s drama. Gow has shown his audience who the main character is and by placing Tom in the role of “Puck” he tells viewers that it is Tom who is going to be the centre of the journeys taking place in the…

    • 3021 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Numerous scholars who examine and analyze the comedy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare point to Puck as the most significant character in the play. Although Shakespeare masks Puck’s important role in the comedy by hiding him amongst the more powerful characters, it becomes apparent that Puck’s mischievous attitude and knack for creating chaos are what moves the play along without a designated climax (“The Comedies: ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream”). Puck is first introduced in “Act II Scene I” when a fairy notions Puck’s infamy by inquiring to him, “Either I mistake your shape and making quite, Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite called Robin Goodfellow” (II. i. 33-35). The fact that Puck is especially known for his ability to morph order to disorder, and likewise, foreshadows the idea of Puck playing an important role in the inevitable chaos and subsequent order between both the mortals and the fairies. Puck, the “shrewd and knavish” fairy assistant to Oberon, plays and undeniably important part in the constant battle between order and disorder in A Midsummer Night’s Dream through his intentional antics, comedic mistakes, and convoluted relationship with both fairies and mortals.…

    • 710 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    An earlier play entitled, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, by William Shakespeare, is a comedy outlining the destinies of two bothered couples. Shakespeare tactically demonstrates the love of two Athens individuals, Lysander and Hermia. The conflict is, Hermia’s father is against the marriage of the two and insists upon marriage with a man named Demetrius. However, the already complicated situation becomes more complex when Hermia discovers that Helena, a deep-rooted friend, is in love with Demetrius. My initial interest of the play arose during the introduction of this conflict.…

    • 819 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Puck not only served as the solution to the lovers’ confusion but also as the root of lover’s magical mix-ups. The couples in the beginning struggle to find a way to be with each other so they run off to the woods. Puck and Oberon hear the situation and come up with a plan. The plan was suppose to help them instead it caused more problems. Puck mixes up the couples and causes a huge confusion. Oberon demands for Puck to resolve the mess he created.…

    • 408 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics