Settings in a Midsummer Nights Dream - Essay Example

Working with Nature is the launching pad for the creative power of the imagination of the poet. This theme is articulated well in Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” To develop this theme, the city and the woods provide ideal settings for the creative imagination to show its latent powers. “The significant action of the play takes place in the forest outside Athens.”(Rahn) The conflict generated in the surroundings of the city moves to the woods in search solution. A conflict generates between Egeus and his daughter Hermia who is not inclined to marry the man he has selected for her. This city conflict is the root cause for the flight of Hermia to the woods to meet her lover Lysander. “In addition to the opposition of the magic wood with the civilized city, Shakespeare establishes other polarities which influence the action in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  The setting also embodies tensions between the supernatural and the mundane, fantasy and reality, imagination and reason, dreaming and waking, passion and self-control, moonshine and daylight.”(Rahn) The forest represents the uncivilized society, outside the legal and moral jurisdiction of human experience.  It is a place where strange things can happen as it is the anarchic wood. The presence of lovers in the play heightens the tensions. When they are there, others arrive and the situation gets complicated further. The perennial anxiety of the spectators is about the possible fate of the lovers. By articulating such a confusing situation in the woods about the city-bred royalty, Shakespeare delights in creating imagery and employs dialogues at their best. A unique bond is established in the woods amongst royalty, commoners, and supernatural creatures. Normally there is no meeting ground between these conflicting interests. But peculiar circumstances have brought them together.  Shakespeare resorts to comical situations and poetic imagination to create a matchless scene of mild confrontation. Deliberate mischief is introduced through the character of Puck who misplaces the magic dust on the eyelids of the wrong lover, Lysander rather than Demetrius making a web of troubles and confusion. He is the unifying character. The fairies/supernatural elements tide over the situation, as expected of their power and the families reconcile their differences.

     The structure of the play is connected well with the example of the supernatural characters of Oberon and Titiana. The audience is able to decipher their connection to human beings, as they have their share of human frailties. The basic characteristics of fairies are capricious and they are irrational. With these two qualities, Shakespeare articulates that they are able to influence human love relationships. Puck, with his ingenuity and sense of humor, wisely interprets the frailties of the humans, and he ends the play with his apology, but not before completing his task of making the supernatural powers bless the mortals, who are happily united. Puck tenders the apology thus:

“If we shadows have offended,

Think but this, and all is mended,

That you have but slumbered here

While these visions did appear

And this weak and idle theme

No more yielding than a dream

Gentles, do not reprehend.” (V, 1, 423-429, p.86)

     The title of the play lends credence to make an important allusion to nature, and this therefore a great imaginative comedy. Dreams induced by the fairies, pave way for the resolution of conflicts with humans in an amicable manner. To understand the structure of the play properly, profound imagination about the people in the bygone era when they believed that invisible creatures interacted with human beings and helped to shape their destinies is necessary.  Angles, demons, fairies, and hobgoblins exercised tremendous influence on the dispositions of human beings. Acts of propitiation to nature were the natural consequence of such influences. 

Robin says,

“(aside)What hempen homespuns have we swaggering here,

So near the cradle of the fairy queen?

What, a play toward? I’ll be an auditor.

An actor too, perhaps, if I see cause.”  (III, 1, 4,p.36)

     A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a romantic comedy it deals with young people entangled in love, belonging to poor or rich classes, they face obstacles imposed by their parents, but ultimately their wedding takes place. They are born in cities, quite intelligent and beautiful. But when fate turns against them and when the parents are hostile, Hermia and Lysander try to challenge fate by seeking the protection of their rich aunt outside the city and their route is through a wild wood. The lovers accept the power structure of the time and they understand their place in it as they leave the wilderness of wood and return to the city to be part of the civilized city. In the structure of the play, important events happen within the wild forest. The conflicts of lovers originating outside the confines of the forest are too complicated for human endeavors to find the resolution and they are magically resolved by the fairies Oberon, within its borders with Puck playing an important role. Hence setting facilitates the plot.