A Mid Summers Nights Dream by William Shakespeare - Book Report/Review Example

? A mid summers night’s dream Introduction A mid summers night’s dream is among Shakespeare’s plays written approximately in the 1590s. The play depicts love adventures of young Athenian lovers including a group of six amateur actors who experience manipulation and at the same time controlled by fairies of love, dreams, magic and love (Shakespeare 3). The characters inhibit the forest where most of the action of exploring love fantasies and magic takes place. This paper will explain how Shakespeare made the settings to control the action in the play. More so, the paper will depict how Theseus the Duke of Athens, was a benevolent ruler. How the setting controls the action The general setting of mid summers night’s dream play is that it takes place in Athens as the location. According to Shakespeare, Athens seems to be the world of the mortals, non-magical, non-fantastical and the only place where reality exists compared to the woods where the rest of the play takes place (Shakespeare 12). The characters Theseus, Hippolyta, and Egeus all remain in Athens, while the other four lovers from Athens opt to venture into the woods, where they their magical journey of fairies and dreams begin. Shakespeare also used love as a setting as a tool that drove the couples and would-be couples into action. However, the love in the play is in no way true or faithful t because the characters’ love exists in the world of magic. In addition, the actions and emotions of the characters in the play relate to love, within the fairy forest, which shows that their love is not realistic. More so, Shakespeare used the magic flower as the master of magic that spurs the love confusion in the forest (Shakespeare 45). The flower’s magic reacts when it is placed on the eyelids of a sleeping man or woman; it causes him or her to madly fall in love with any existing creature that could be reachable. The magic in the flower is in the juice that oozes out of the flower, and the juice from this magic flower is the tool that confuses all the lovers in the forest as well as a tool in which all disputes are amended. The setting of the forest represents a savage place where anything can happen because the forest is beyond legal jurisdiction. More so, the forest or woods embody tensions between fantasy and reality, the supernatural and the mundane, dreaming and waking, imagination and reason, passion and self-control, moonshine and daylight (Shakespeare 71). The forest is a world where fairies reign, magic is ubiquitous, and fantasy becomes reality. The carefree nature portrays when the actors Titania and Oberon lived in the forest and subsequently moved from one portion to the other. The other characters Hermia and Lysander run into the forest in order to safe their love. Therefore, Shakespeare’s forest setting was because there are no rules in the forests and the characters could do what they pleased and thus why they fall in and out of love, fight, curse and still make up and create harmony for everyone in the forest. The use of supernatural being is among the settings that Shakespeare added up to the play. From beginning to the end, the play is full of supernatural beings. For instance, Oberon is the husband of Titania and the king of fairies, Titania is the Queen of fairies, and on the other hand, Puck who is a misunderstood fairy, complicates the entire situation in the woods. The use of supernatural beings or characters affects the action on the play because it offers the audience the needed fun by making the play complex and comic. Shakespeare also used the setting of Quince’s house to measure up social classes of few characters in the play. Quinces house is in Athens, and it represents the lower class and the commoners (Shakespeare 33). The house also was the location of numerous rehearsals for Thisbe and Pyramus, because Quince is a carpenter and the director of the mini-play. Theseus as a benevolent ruler Theseus was the Duke of Athens, and consequently the most powerful character in the play (Shakespeare 5). However, unlike many rulers of law, Theseus is a benevolence and compassionate ruler who did not pass his rulings according to the governing law but according to his own sensitive perspective but at the same time adjacent to the governing law. This means that though he made rulings he did not directly do as accorded by the law and neither did he bend the rules but offered other favorable options to the victims. Such an incident was depicted when Egeus turns to him for justice when his daughter (Hermia) refused to marry the man her father had chosen for her. The bitter Egeus begged Theseus to uphold the Athenian law, which rules out death penalty for disobedient children (Shakespeare 7). Surprisingly, Theseus did not heed to Egeus pleas but instead gave the rebellious daughter a chance to think and decide whether to face the death penalty or be a celibate nun if he refuses to marry the man her father had chosen for her called Demetrius (Shakespeare 9). This depicts the compassion and wisdom in Theseus rulings because he did not want to bend the law in favor of (Hermia) but still gives her a chance to be happy. Conclusion Shakespeare is known for his outstanding written pieces of love and romance that are evident in his other plays, and mid summers night’s dream is not exceptional. This is so because mid summers night’s dream is a perfect piece set in the right atmosphere that adjust to the themes of the play which is romance, magic, fantasies and dreams (Shakespeare 160). Ultimately, the play depicts the value systems represented by the forest and the city contrasting the volatile and chaotic disorder of the unknown environments of civilized life and implicitly. This encourages the viewers through the portrayed characters’ behavior to shun the irrational world of dreams (Shakespeare 161). In this respect, the audience tends to wonder whether real love really exists or not as depicted by Shakespeare. However, throughout a midsummer night's dream, Shakespeare does not reach one solid conclusion concerning the existence of true love. The play itself presents the evidence that what people perceive as true love is often not but rather it usually is selfishness or infatuation. This evidence is depicted by the array of obstacles that true love faces in the characters' relationships, which show the emotional state that may exist, but reaching it and maintaining true love is the test that the play’s characters fail. Works cited Shakespeare, William, and Arthur Rackham. Shakespeare's a Midsummer Night's Dream. Mineola, N.Y: Dover, 2003. Print. Read More