How does Act V make a good ending to A Midsummer Night's Dream?

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4th Year Coursework Essay – A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Q: How does Act V make a good ending to A Midsummer Night’s Dream?

A: The final act at first seems completely unnecessary to the overall plot of the play. After all, in Act Four we not only have the lovers intent on getting married, but there has been a happy resolution to the overall conflict. Thus, the immediate question which arises is why Shakespeare felt it necessary to include this act.

The answer lies in part with the entrance of all the characters in the final scene (with the exception of Egeus); this acts as a sort of encore to resolve any unanswered questions the audience may have about any of the characters.

In Act Five the play is resolved with a typical happy ending with Lysander and Hermia, Demetrius and Helena and Theseus and Hippolyta getting married, contrasting with some of the plays written by Shakespeare earlier and later in his life in which death and sorrow predominate. The lovers have the blessings of both Theseus and the fairies. The only character in the play that could have ruined the happy ending is Egeus as he was unhappy about his daughter Hermia marrying Lysander (see above). Shakespeare may have been trying to make a point by leaving Egeus out, not all happy endings end up with everyone happy. If we think about typical fairytales such as Snow White then we realise that unhappy characters like the Wicked Witch were left out of the happy endings to those plays and that to have a happy ending this may have to be done. Neither is there any mention of the fact that at the start of the day Demetrius wished that Helena was dead and by the end they are married. There is no mention either of the fact that Demetrius is only in love with Helena because of the love juice that Oberon put in his eyes. Although he is a main character Egeus isn’t included in the fifth act and he loses merit as his daughter marries Demetrius and the law backs her up. This too has to be done if the happy ending is to be maintained. Philostrate is another example of disgruntled party in Act Five as well as Egeus as he didn’t want to see the mechanical’s play again, but in the end was simply overruled by Theseus.  Perhaps Shakespeare is trying to make the point that this, like many plays’ conclusions, might be a manufactured happy ending.

When you had read halfway through the play the last thing that you would have seen coming was a happy ending, in this way the happy ending isn’t cheap and wasn’t predictable. It was also most clearly the result of crucial help from the “fairies”.

Perhaps the most telling line of the last act is when Theseus asks, "How shall we find the concord of this discord?" but that is exactly what has happened in the play itself, namely there has been a resolution to the discord of the lovers in the initial scenes, which by the end has turned into concord. This makes the play perfect for an epithalamium (a play “put on” at a wedding). Perhaps Shakespeare may even have been contracted to write this play as an epithalamium.

The sub-plot, revolving around the mechanicals, also ends happily. Bottom is not "transported" as they had feared, but arrives in time to “save” the interlude, which, despite its weaknesses, proves to be a hit when preformed.

Shakespeare was clearly trying to drive home a point about theatre; he wants to make it clear that the ending to this play could just as easily have been tragedy and not comedy. The Pyramus and Thisby play is not randomly chosen as a “grotesque” or absurd play within the play; what makes this very clear is that it parallels the actual action of the lovers quite closely. Pyramus and Thisby decide to run away, a lion (one of the monsters in the forest) emerges and seizes Thisby's cloak, and when Pyramus sees the bloodied cloak he rashly commits suicide. This ending could easily have been the ending to A Midsummer Night's Dream, closing the play with a picture of the tragedy that the Athenian lovers experienced.

There are many contrasts in the play, including that between reason and imagination, or between the rational and the irrational elements in human experience and Act V shows these fully.  

Jealousy is a big theme in A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Helena and Hermia suffering from it at the start of the play. Jealousy exists in another form with Bottom. He loves attention and loves to speak. He is jealous of other peoples’ stage time in the mechanical’s play and plans to take all of it that he can. He overacts, speaks too much, and dies an elongated stage-death, stealing scenes from everyone else on stage. By Act V however these jealousies have faded.

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In A Midsummer Night’s Dream there is much emphasis on the foolishness of love e.g. the love-hate relationship between Demetrius and Helena. However the play concludes with the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta that was “interrupted” in the first act. However, this time, instead of focusing exclusively on the special union of one couple, the play allows a triple wedding to occur. This triple wedding amplifies the happiness of each couple's love and diminishes the importance of the jealousy somewhat. The weddings are not even mentioned in the actual play, even though they did take place.

Shakespeare also uses ...

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