Letteratura inglese - Midsummer Night s Dream

Plot Overview

Theseus, duke of Athens, is preparing for his marriage to Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, with a four-day festival of

pomp and entertainment. He commissions his Master of the Revels, Philostrate, to find suitable amusements for the

occasion. Egeus, an Athenian nobleman, marches into Theseus’s court with his daughter, Hermia, and two young men,

Demetrius and Lysander. Egeus wishes Hermia to marry Demetrius (who loves Hermia), but Hermia is in love with

Lysander and refuses to comply. Egeus asks for the full penalty of law to fall on Hermia’s head if she flouts her father’s will.

Theseus gives Hermia until his wedding to consider her options, warning her that disobeying her father’s wishes could

result in her being sent to a convent or even executed. Nonetheless, Hermia and Lysander plan to escape Athens the

following night and marry in the house of Lysander’s aunt, some seven leagues distant from the city. They make their

intentions known to Hermia’s friend Helena, who was once engaged to Demetrius and still loves him even though he jilted

her after meeting Hermia. Hoping to regain his love, Helena tells Demetrius of the elopement that Hermia and Lysander

have planned. At the appointed time, Demetrius stalks into the woods after his intended bride and her lover; Helena follows

behind him.

In these same woods are two very different groups of characters. The first is a band of fairies, including Oberon, the fairy

king, and Titania, his queen, who has recently returned from India to bless the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. The

second is a band of Athenian craftsmen rehearsing a play that they hope to perform for the duke and his bride. Oberon and

Titania are at odds over a young Indian prince given to Titania by the prince’s mother; the boy is so beautiful that Oberon

wishes to make him a knight, but Titania refuses. Seeking revenge, Oberon sends his merry servant, Puck, to acquire a

magical flower, the juice of which can be spread over a sleeping person’s eyelids to make that person fall in love with the

first thing he or she sees upon waking. Puck obtains the flower, and Oberon tells him of his plan to spread its juice on the

sleeping Titania’s eyelids. Having seen Demetrius act cruelly toward Helena, he orders Puck to spread some of the juice on

the eyelids of the young Athenian man. Puck encounters Lysander and Hermia; thinking that Lysander is the Athenian of

whom Oberon spoke, Puck afflicts him with the love potion. Lysander happens to see Helena upon awaking and falls deeply

in love with her, abandoning Hermia. As the night progresses and Puck attempts to undo his mistake, both Lysander and

Demetrius end up in love with Helena, who believes that they are mocking her. Hermia becomes so jealous that she tries to

challenge Helena to a fight. Demetrius and Lysander nearly do fight over Helena’s love, but Puck confuses them by

mimicking their voices, leading them apart until they are lost separately in the forest.

When Titania wakes, the first creature she sees is Bottom, the most ridiculous of the Athenian craftsmen, whose head Puck

has mockingly transformed into that of an ass. Titania passes a ludicrous interlude doting on the ass-headed weaver.

Eventually, Oberon obtains the Indian boy, Puck spreads the love potion on Lysander’s eyelids, and by morning all is well.

Theseus and Hippolyta discover the sleeping lovers in the forest and take them back to Athens to be married—Demetrius

now loves Helena, and Lysander now loves Hermia. After the group wedding, the lovers watch Bottom and his fellow

craftsmen perform their play, a fumbling, hilarious version of the story of Pyramus and Thisbe. When the play is completed,

the lovers go to bed; the fairies briefly emerge to bless the sleeping couples with a protective charm and then disappear.

Only Puck remains, to ask the audience for its forgiveness and approval and to urge it to remember the play as though it had

all been a dream.

Character List

Puck - Also known as Robin Goodfellow, Puck is Oberon’s jester, a mischievous fairy who delights in playing pranks on

mortals. Though A Midsummer Night’s Dream divides its action between several groups of characters, Puck is the closest

thing the play has to a protagonist. His enchanting, mischievous spirit pervades the atmosphere, and his antics are

responsible for many of the complications that propel the other main plots: he mistakes the young Athenians, applying the

love potion to Lysander instead of Demetrius, thereby causing chaos within the group of young lovers; he also transforms

Bottom’s head into that of an ass.

Read an in-depth analysis of Puck.

Oberon - The king of the fairies, Oberon is initially at odds with his wife, Titania, because she refuses to relinquish control

of a young Indian prince whom he wants for a knight. Oberon’s desire for revenge on Titania leads him to send Puck to

obtain the love-potion flower that creates so much of the play’s confusion and farce.

Titania - The beautiful queen of the fairies, Titania resists the attempts of her husband, Oberon, to make a knight of the

young Indian prince that she has been given. Titania’s brief, potion-induced love for Nick Bottom, whose head Puck has

transformed into that of an ass, yields the play’s foremost example of the contrast motif.

Lysander - A young man of Athens, in love with Hermia. Lysander’s relationship with Hermia invokes the theme of love’s

difficulty: he cannot marry her openly because Egeus, her father, wishes her to wed Demetrius; when Lysander and Hermia

run away into the forest, Lysander becomes the victim of misapplied magic and wakes up in love with Helena.

Demetrius - A young man of Athens, initially in love with Hermia and ultimately in love with Helena. Demetrius’s

obstinate pursuit of Hermia throws love out of balance among the quartet of Athenian youths and precludes a symmetrical

two-couple arrangement.

Hermia - Egeus’s daughter, a young woman of Athens. Hermia is in love with Lysander and is a childhood friend of

Helena. As a result of the fairies’ mischief with Oberon’s love potion, both Lysander and Demetrius suddenly fall in love

with Helena. Self-conscious about her short stature, Hermia suspects that Helena has wooed the men with her height. By

morning, however, Puck has sorted matters out with the love potion, and Lysander’s love for Hermia is restored.

Helena - A young woman of Athens, in love with Demetrius. Demetrius and Helena were once betrothed, but when

Demetrius met Helena’s friend Hermia, he fell in love with her and abandoned Helena. Lacking confidence in her looks,

Helena thinks that Demetrius and Lysander are mocking her when the fairies’ mischief causes them to fall in love with her.

Read an in-depth analysis of Helena.

Egeus - Hermia’s father, who brings a complaint against his daughter to Theseus: Egeus has given Demetrius permission to

marry Hermia, but Hermia, in love with Lysander, refuses to marry Demetrius. Egeus’s severe insistence that Hermia either

respect his wishes or be held accountable to Athenian law places him squarely outside the whimsical dream realm of the

forest.

Theseus - The heroic duke of Athens, engaged to Hippolyta. Theseus represents power and order throughout the play. He

appears only at the beginning and end of the story, removed from the dreamlike events of the forest.

Hippolyta - The legendary queen of the Amazons, engaged to Theseus. Like Theseus, she symbolizes order.

Nick Bottom - The overconfident weaver chosen to play Pyramus in the craftsmen’s play for Theseus’s marriage

celebration. Bottom is full of advice and self-confidence but frequently makes silly mistakes and misuses language. His

simultaneous nonchalance about the beautiful Titania’s sudden love for him and unawareness of the fact that Puck has

transformed his head into that of an ass mark the pinnacle of his foolish arrogance.

Read an in-depth analysis of Nick Bottom.

Peter Quince - A carpenter and the nominal leader of the craftsmen’s attempt to put on a play for Theseus’s marriage

celebration. Quince is often shoved aside by the abundantly confident Bottom. During the craftsmen’s play, Quince plays

the Prologue.

Francis Flute - The bellows-mender chosen to play Thisbe in the craftsmen’s play for Theseus’s marriage celebration.

Forced to play a young girl in love, the bearded craftsman determines to speak his lines in a high, squeaky voice.

Robin Starveling - The tailor chosen to play Thisbe’s mother in the craftsmen’s play for Theseus’s marriage celebration.

He ends up playing the part of Moonshine.

Tom Snout - The tinker chosen to play Pyramus’s father in the craftsmen’s play for Theseus’s marriage celebration. He

ends up playing the part of Wall, dividing the two lovers.

Snug - The joiner chosen to play the lion in the craftsmen’s play for Theseus’s marriage celebration. Snug worries that his

roaring will frighten the ladies in the audience.

Philostrate - Theseus’s Master of the Revels, responsible for organizing the entertainment for the duke’s marriage

celebration.

Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Mote, and Mustardseed - The fairies ordered by Titania to attend to Bottom after she falls in

love with him.

Themes, Symbols, & Motifs

Themes

Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

Love’s Difficulty

“The course of true love never did run smooth,” comments Lysander, articulating one of A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s

most important themes—that of the difficulty of love (I.i.134). Though most of the conflict in the play stems from the

troubles of romance, and though the play involves a number of romantic elements, it is not truly a love story; it distances the

audience from the emotions of the characters in order to poke fun at the torments and afflictions that those in love suffer.

The tone of the play is so lighthearted that the audience never doubts that things will end happily, and it is therefore free to

enjoy the comedy without being caught up in the tension of an uncertain outcome.

The theme of love’s difficulty is often explored through the motif of love out of balance—that is, romantic situations in

which a disparity or inequality interferes with the harmony of a relationship. The prime instance of this imbalance is the

asymmetrical love among the four young Athenians: Hermia loves Lysander, Lysander loves Hermia, Helena loves

Demetrius, and Demetrius loves Hermia instead of Helena—a simple numeric imbalance in which two men love the same

woman, leaving one woman with too many suitors and one with too few. The play has strong potential for a traditional

outcome, and the plot is in many ways based on a quest for internal balance; that is, when the lovers’ tangle resolves itself

into symmetrical pairings, the traditional happy ending will have been achieved. Somewhat similarly, in the relationship

between Titania and Oberon, an imbalance arises out of the fact that Oberon’s coveting of Titania’s Indian boy outweighs

his