A midsummer night's dream - Essay Example

The action swings back and forth between these characters and with typical dexterity Shakespeare interweaves these separate threads into a colorful tapestry. The action commences in Athens, and then repairs to the woods outside Athens before climaxing again in Athens. The setting of the action in the woods is an essential aspect of the play. It is the realm of fairies and there is magic in the air, literally! It is a world far- removed from reality and where imagination is given free rein. In this surreal, setting the lovers find an escape from the restrictions of polite society and can shed their inhibitions.

The woods are beautiful, dreamy, and mysterious but it can turn menacing and the characters find themselves confronting their dark sides before completing the transformation which holds the key to their collective happiness. And it is in this theme of transformation that permeates the play that the woods have particular significance. Northrop Frye speaks of the “green world” in Shakespeare’s comedies as a place offering brief solace from the mundane difficulties that pervade human existence (qtd.

in Sullivan Jr. 184). In the words of Laroque, “The green world was regarded as a place of escape from the constraints of the law and of everyday life, a place of change and deep interior transformation” (29). The woods in A Midsummer Night’s Dream perform this function admirably. Athens has become an inhospitable place for the lovers Hermia and Lysander as Egeus wishes his daughter to marry Demetrius and he would rather have her executed as per the laws of the land than allow her to follow the dictates of her heart.

When Theseus is asked to preside over this conundrum he finds that his hands are tied and he says: These lines reflect the harshness and rigid cruelty of the hub of civilization that is Athens.