Midsummers Night Dream - 1017 Words

How does the ‘play within the play’ enhance your enjoyment of the rest of A Midsummer Night’s Dream? If not, why not? I would argue that A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of Shakespeare’s greatest comedies. Comedy is in abundance in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, especially in ‘the play within the play’. ‘The play within the play’ is a key characteristic in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and deserves a thorough analysis as it holds a tight link to the main plot of this play. This part of the play takes up most of act V and allows a cheerful and comical ending to the play. ‘The play within the play’ adds deeper meaning and understanding to the play as an entirety and it mirrors certain aspects of the play as a whole. The play that group of†¦show more content†¦However puke gets mixed up and instead he anoints the eyes of Lysander therefore causing him to fall in love with Helina, leaving Hermia without her beloved Lysander. Yet the Oberon soon makes Puke correct his mistake and reunites the lovers correctly. Lysander and Hermia fall back in love with the help of some more love juice. Helina eventually gets her wish. Demetrius is as in love with her as she is in love is with him. As if there wasn’t enough characters getting upset and confused, Shakespeare also adds nearly an equal measure of confusion into ‘the play within the play’. Just as the Athenian lovers were bewildered and fooled, so too was Pyramus. He mistakenly believed that his love Thisbe has been killed by the lion. This almost exact mirroring of the main themes and ideas of A Midsummer Night’s Dream enhances the quality and enjoyment of ‘the play within the play’ and the entire play itself. ‘The play within the play’ gave me something to compare my views on A Midsummer Night’s Dream against. The impact that ‘the play within the play’ has on the audience is very subtle yet it is a major link in the play as a whole. When A Midsummer Night’s Dream begins it has all the making of a tragedy. The father who refuses to let her daughter wed the man she is in love with, who instead orders her to marry a man who he sees fit. Hermias father wants her killed for disobeying her. The mention of death is alsoShow MoreRelatedA Midsummer Nights Dream1759 Words   |  8 PagesA MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM SUMMARY This play is a love story that is split between four sets of lovers; Hippolyta and Theseus, Hermia and Lysander, Helena and Demetrius and Titania and Oberon. The story begins with a distraught father, Egeus, asking the Duke, Thesus, to bring the law upon his daughter s, Hermia’s, head. His request is made because he wants her to marry Demetrius and she has disobeyed him by seeing Lysander in secret. The Duke gives Hermia up to the day of his wedding to decide toRead MoreA Midsummer Night s Dream Essay854 Words   |  4 PagesA Midsummer NIght’s Dream A â€Å" Midsummer Night’s Dream† is a classical play written by William Shakespeare. It is one of his more eccentric piece of work. The play is about the struggle of love between four essential characters: Hermia, Lysander, Demetrius , and Helena. However, it is not quite that simple. The play is quite confusing. In â€Å"Midsummer Night’s dream† the play take place in two realms fairy realm and human realm, two of the three main settings. Another one of the settings take placeRead MoreA Midsummer Night s Dream1094 Words   |  5 PagesJeana Jago Theater History J. Robideau October,1st 2015 A Midsummer Night’s Dream In a Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare story about romantic desire. Theseus and Hippolyta, are about to be married; both of them are wonderful figures from classical mythology. (Greek Mythology) Theseus is a great warrior, a kinsman of Hercules; Hippolyta is an Amazon warrior-woman, defeated in battle by Theseus. (Theseus and Hippolyta) He was longing for the wedding day, and this is what opens the play and closingRead MoreA Midsummer Nights Dream Essay1068 Words   |  5 Pages In the comedic romantic play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare, four plebeians are fighting for fate and destiny in the city of Athens, Greece. Hermia, a strong willed young lady, defies her father’s orders to marry Demetrius, another Athenian man, and subsequently runs off to the woods to marry Lysander. However, when the lovers, Hermia and Lysander, run off, their plans are disrupted when they are told on by Helena, Demetriuss obsessive lover. At this moment, Lysander,Read MoreA Midsummer Night s Dream911 Words   |  4 PagesPranti Ahmed Blue 4 Brit Lit April 8 2015 A Midsummer Nights Dream Topic #1 Love is a timeless topic which Shakespeare explores in depth in â€Å"A Midsummer Night’s Dream â€Å". Shakespeare utilizes the format of a play within a play to communicate the complexities of love. Love is a force that characters cannot control. The play includes scenes of lovers searching for fulfillment in the arms of characters who are unavailable. The magic love potion wreaks havoc between actual lovers andRead MoreA Midsummer Night s Dream1905 Words   |  8 PagesA MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM As Duke Theseus and Hippolyta prepare for their wedding, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Egeus arrives with his daughter Hermia, who is in love with Lysander. Egeus wants Hermia to marry Demetrius who loves her back. Helena is in love with Demetrius. The Duke tells Hermia she will either die or become a nun if she does not obey. Hermia and Lysander run away to the forest. In the forest, Oberon and Titania, the king and queen of the fairies, mix the couples up when they squeezeRead MoreA Midsummer Night s Dream Essay1286 Words   |  6 PagesWithin A Midsummer Night’s Dream there are many different similes and metaphors that are themselves within another simile or metaphor. What stuck out to me was the meaning of that, the multi-layered symbolism. From the title of the play to the ending speech, the possibility of this being a dream is clearly stated. Inside of that the woods are a dreamlike state that are outside of Athens in what could be called a purgatory between the reality of Athens and the fiction of the play within the play.Read MoreA Midsummer Night s Dream Essay1664 Words   |  7 PagesIn A Midsummer Night’s Dream, one of the most poignant similes occurs when Theseus advises Hermia that she should yield to her father’s wishes because she is his creation, a figure in wax, and he has the power to command her, mold her, or destroy her at will (MND I.I.49-51). In Athenian society, a woman is expected to yield control of her life to men and to allow them to mold her affections to their will. The simile of a woman as a wax figure suggest that the only resolution to conflict is for theRead MoreAnalysis Of Midsummer Night s Dream 1251 Words   |  6 Pages Midsummer Night’s Dream is a perfect example of just how deceit can tear people apart. When trying to force a situation into something/ a situation you wish it to be you can end up putting yourself in quite the compromising position. It is a good story on the struggles of true love, parents wills, and fighting for what one believes in, with just a hint a magical alure to it and a slight pull of betrayal to make things even more interesting. In the end though, just as almost every other love storyRead MoreAnalysis of A Midsummer Night ´s Dream1001 Words   |  5 PagesWilliam Shakespeare starts with a seemingly unresolvable conflict in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The main characters are lovers who are either unrequited in their love or hassled by the love of another. These lovers are inevitably paired. How does Shakespeare make this happen? He creates many subplots that, before long, are all snarled up into a chaotic knot. So, what actions does Shakespeare take to res olve these new quandaries? He ends up trusting a single key entity with his comedy. It’s only then