In A Midsummer Nights Dream, all of the action is set in the setting of the woods rather than in the restrictive and oppressive society of Athens. Although the events of the woods do not represent the subconscious feelings of the characters, they

woods. The most obvious example of this is the switching of roles between the two female characters of Helena and Hermia – whilst before both Demetrius and Lysander had been in love with Helena, both of them then fall in love with Hermia. The love for Hermia seems very strong for both of them at the beginning of the play. Lysander says “I am beloved of beauteous Hermia,” and the repeated ‘b’ sound and gentle language illustrates his love, and the alliteration of “devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry” has a repetition of a hard ‘d’ sound which emphasises the phrase and therefore the extent to which she has fallen. Demetrius also calls her “sweet Hermia” and also considers her his “certain right”, showing how strongly he feels towards her. It could be argued that this switch of affections does represent a deeper journey into their subconscious thoughts, particularly in Hermia’s reaction. Hermia often expresses a wish to be like Helena and envies her of her beauty. She says “Call you me fair? That ‘fair’ again unsay,” which shows how jealous she is of Hermia, and her passion over this subject as she keeps repeating the word ‘fair’ throughout this speech in phrases such as “Demetrius loves your fair,” showing that she is envious of both Helena’s beauty and Demetrius’ love for her, and “O happy fair!” – the placement of the two words next to each other in this explosive statement, highlighted by the use of the exclamation mark, shows that in Helena’s mind, happiness is linked to beauty.           This reflects the idea that all that women were in men’s eyes were objects to be desired and that a woman’s beauty was the only quality worth noticing. It is interesting that throughout the play, this does not change and even when under the influence of the magic, the men are still only concerned with looks. For example, Demetrius uses phrases such as “O Helen, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine! / To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne?” The short, disjointed phrases and exaggeration of romantic lexis emphasise all the different qualities that he sees and yet they are all only concerned with her beauty. The way that he feels he will be able to convince her of his love is also by complimenting her, as he uses phrases that are about beauty such as “thy lips, those kissing cherries” and “this princess of pure white”. This would suggest that the way women are perceived is so deeply ingrained into the men that even entering the woods cannot reverse these ideas.            However, when this yearning is then realised as all the men fall in love with her, she finds herself unhappy than ever as her own anxieties and low self-esteem mean that she cannot believe that the men have really fallen in love with her. This subconscious yearning then turns into more and more anxiety and fear until she becomes hysterical, suggesting that the whole world has not, in fact, been turned upside down as the female characters are still conforming to the stereotype of being emotional and irrational. Freud’s theories on hysteria support the idea that this hysterical behaviour is called by love and yearning. He suggests that “hysteria” and “being in love” are linked by “the concentration on a loved one: the lover’s ‘state of rapture’ causing ‘external reality to fade,” which is supports A Midsummer Night’s Dream as when the lovers are under the influence of the flower, they become completely absorbed in nothing but their loved ones, to the point of obsession.            Hermia, on the other hand, finds herself loved by nobody which it could be suggested from her dream is her own subconscious fear. She describes how she “thought a serpent ate my heart away” which is a prophetic dream that tells the truth and predicts the change and nightmare. It is also significant that the image is of a serpent as, because of the story of the Garden of Eden, the serpent is often linked to temptation, this shows that these love temptations can be released and able to be let free now that they are away from society. She also becomes hysterical when she loses Lysander’s love and Freud makes an interesting point that a woman who is hysterical is often so because she has not received “an education commensurate with her intellectual capacities” and that women are not “weak-minded” which supports the idea that Hermia is not treated as an intelligent, whole person in Athens but instead simply as a feminine object of beauty. The idea that the characters follow their yearnings once they have entered the woods is undeniable – even when under the influence of the flower and the fairies’ magic, they all pursue the people that they are in love with or lusting after. However, these yearnings could not be described as “subconscious” as they are dealt with so explicitly throughout the play, with the male characters openly changing their affections numerous times, but a return to the ‘original’ pairings following the chaos at the end. What appears to be a more accurate argument is that the yearnings are not represented by the journey into the woods but instead that by freeing the characters of the pressure to conform, it becomes acceptable for them to act on their yearnings rather than suppress them. Lysander is very open with Hermia, openly threatening to “hurt her, strike her, kill her dead” and the device of three here shows how strongly he feels, even though the feelings are not true.  Whether all of their yearnings are fulfilled or not is debatable. Within the woods, Lysander and Hermia are broken apart, which could perhaps be suggested is one of their fears as their love for each other was so strong that they were willing to defy the male characters in order to act upon them. Helena is even willing to risk the punishment of “death, or single life.” However, during the play they go from not being allowed to marry to coming together at the end and so this yearning is fulfilled. Helena’s yearning is also fulfilled as she finally manages to secure Demetrius’ love, something that she has been looking for since the beginning of the play. Demetrius, on the other hand, ends up with Helena when he had originally been in love with Hermia. Whilst at first it seems that he has been tricked as he is the only character who ends the play still under the influence of the fairies’ magic, actually he had been in love with Helena first and so the love he has for her is not new but just the real yearning underneath after his lust for Helena had been removed. Overall, the play is interesting as it both begins and ends in Athens with a mostly normal setting but the middle section within the woods is so different and allows them to act in a way that they would not previously had been able to, with emotions such as love, lust and hysteria coming to light. They are able to explore these emotions when they come into the woods in a way that they would not have been able to in Athens. It is this journey that is represented by the changes that they experience when they enter the upside-down world of the woods.