A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

Term Paper Title	A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
# of Words	737
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	2.95

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by William Shakespeare is a play on the theme of love. The play is a comedy and it shows that the course of love doesn’t always run smoothly.

  Shakespeare uses different settings to show the complication in the lover’s lives.

I think that is a very clever thing to do. The first scene takes place in The Palace of Theseus. Theseus, the Duke of Athens, is getting married to Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, in four days time. There is a very calm and peaceful atmosphere at this time and everyone is happy. This is shown by a quote from Theseus “ with pomp, with triumph, and with revelling”.

  The atmosphere then changes when Egeus intrudes into the party. This is because his daughter, Hermia, is supposed to be marrying Demetrius, a young man chosen by her father. Although she wants to marry Lysander, the man she is deeply in love with. This doesn’t make Theseus very happy.

  Once Theseus tells Hermia she cannot marry Lysander they make plans to runaway together to the outside of Athens. This is because the laws of Athens can’t stop them there. Lysander says “There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee”.

  Shakespeare changes the setting at this point to show the atmosphere is changing from a calm peaceful one to a wild and disorderly one. There are now fairies and magic being introduced to the story. Some of the new characters are “Proud Titania” and “Jealous Oberon”. Another character called Puck is also introduced. He is described as a “shrewd and knavish sprite”.

  The story then goes on to tell us about the juice of the purple flower. If the juice is placed in someone’s eyes then the first things they see when they wake up they fall in love with, no matter who or what it is.

Oberon tells Puck to put the juice in the eyes of Demetrius eyes so he will fall in love with Helena. Then Puck mistakes Lysander for Demetrius and Demetrius falls in love with Helena.

  There are many different types of cha...

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