Explore the theme of Appearance and Reality in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

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                                                                                          Faye Jarvis 10A

Explore the theme of Appearance and Reality in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

     A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a comedy, written by William Shakespeare. It’s made up of madness, confusion, mayhem, illusions and obviously dreams, as it says in it title.

A key theme to A Midsummer Night’s Dream is appearance and reality. This is where the confusion starts. The Artisans fail to grasp the difference between appearance and reality, this adds to the humour of the play.

The setting of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is in Athens and the woods. Athens represents reality. And the woods symbolise illusion.

The power of love, magic and imagination add to the madness and illusion of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The play itself is an illusion.

In order to enjoy the illusion of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, we need to suspend reality.

     Love, whether induced by magic or real, often robs people of their common sense and makes it difficult to tell what is real.

At the start of the play, we are introduced to the idea that songs, moonlight and poetry are able to influence people’s feelings.

“This old moon wanes! She lingers my desires”

Also at the start of the play, Egeus speaks harshly of Lysander. He accuses Lysander of stealing Hermia’s love. He doesn’t believe that Hermia loves Lysander of her own free will, and is convinced it is because of trickery.

“Filched my daughters heart”

Egeus refers to the love as induced by magic. He thinks that Lysander and his gifts charm Hermia

“Interchanged love-tokens”

“This man hath bewitched”

Helena’s soliloquy is important to A Midsummer Night’s Dream because she talks about falling in love, and not seeing clearly.

“Things base and vile, holding no quantity”

This becomes apparent later on in the play when Titania falls in love with bottom. This is when the ultimate absurdity of the play is reached. Later on in the play we see that both Demetrius and Lysander ‘love’ Helena. Helena is convinced that they are both playing a trick on her, but they are in fact serious. What Demetrius and Lysander do not realise is that their love for Helena is not real, and is induced by the power of love (the love juice that Puck gives them). When Lysander tried to justify his love to Helena he uses repetition of the word ‘reason’. This is ironic because there is no reason in his love at all!

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“Reason becomes the marshal to my will”

“Reason says you are the worthier maid”

Even later on in the play Titania falls in love with Bottom.

He besots her, which is absurd because he is merely an ass! As Bottom sings, she even compares his voice to that of an angel!

“What angel wakes me”

This is ridiculous because he is an ass, far from an angel.

     A Midsummer Night’s Dream is set in two different places, Athens and the woods.

Athens symbolises a world of sanity, reality and daylight. Whereas the woods symbolise fairyland, illusion, magic, mystery, ...

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