A Midsummer Nights Dream
I am writing my essay on A Midsummer Nights Dream by William Shakespeare and I am going to focus on the relationships and how they change and evolve throughout the play.
In A Midsummer Nights Dream there are several groups of characters that all get entangled throughout the play. They are the mechanicals, the fairies, the Athenian court and the lovers. Each group is mixed with another group sometime in the play.
The fairies are the creatures who live in the forest and play an important role in the confusion that takes place later in the play. The most important of the fairies are Oberon and Titania. They are the fairy king and queen and have had an argument involving a young Indian boy. It is this argument that leads to a love potion being collected by puck and it is this that leads to the relationships being mixed up during the course of the play.
The lovers are all from Athens and the play follows there story most of the time. They are in the forest most of the time. Lysander and Hermia are in love but Demetrius is also loves with Hermia and hermias father wants her to marry Demetrius. At the same time a lady called Helena loves Demetrius but he does not love her. Hermia and Lysander run away from Athens so they can get married but Helena tells Demetrius about this so they go after them to try and stop them. This is how they end up in the forest and there they come across the fairies.
The mechanicals are the Athenian crafts men and they consist of Bottom the weaver, Quince the carpenter, Flute the bellows mender, Snout the tinker, Starvling the tailor and Snug the joiner.
During most of the play they will going over a performance that they are to perform on the Dukes wedding day.
Perhaps the most important of the mechanicals is Bottom the weaver as will later be taken in by Titania who falls in love with him.
This now brings me to a very important feature in the play. After the argument between Oberon and Titania, puck, Oberons servant, is told to collect a flower. The juice of the flower will make anyone fall in love with the first person they see. The juice is put in Titanias eyes which then makes her fall in love with bottom who has now been transformed into an ass. The juice is then put in Lysanders eyes and he then falls in love with Helena. The juice however was meant for Demetrius so he would fall in love with Helena. However the juice also gets in Demetrius eyes who also falls in love with Helena. Ehlena becomes very confused and thinks that the other three are playing a trick on her.
In the climax of the play the relation ships are as follows. Titania is in love with bottom as the juice has been put in her eyes. However by this time Obreron is jealous of bottom as he still loves Titania. Lysander and Demetrius both love Helena and Hermia loves Lysander.
Nearing the end of the play Oberon decides to put every thing back to normal. Helena and Demetrius are in love, Lysander and Hermia are in love and bottom is back to normal.
I though that the way that the relationships managed to bring everyone together into on place was done very well and the way it all built up and fell over itself was very clever and enjoyed the book and would recommend it.
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