Midsummer Night's Dream

The themes one pulls out of a piece of fiction or a play like The Midsummer Night's Dream may be abstract, but they will be embedded in the details, even thet sensual details, of the story or play itself. A story is never just a chunk of reality, however the author or publisher may present it. Even if the author invents nothing outright, he or she must select some details, leave others out, and characterize whatever details remain in one way or another. All selected or invented aspects of a story or play generally exist to support whatever impressions the author or players would make, much as everything in an essay exists to support a thesis. Of course, just what the point is, which details relate to which aspects of the point, and how the author's point relates to something the reader or essayist observes about our world sometimes remains less than obvious.

Almost any detail may render something significant: if not, why did the author include it? For instance, I would have never guessed that Duke Theseus' fiance Hippolyta is supposed to be the Queen of the Amazons. At first glance, it seems almost totally irrelevant to the play, or at least to the movie production that we watched in class. But the Amazons were a mythical or legendary tribe of fierce female warriors. Why would Shakespeare introduce such a heady detail? What does it have to do with these lovers wandering in the woods? What does it have to do with Theseus' role in the play?

Theseus judges. He judges and adjucates Hermia's case -- once against here, then again in her favor when he finds the couples in the meadow on the morning after their strange revels. What responsibility to uphold the law when his sympathies and most everyone's in this case lie with Hermia and Lysander? What do his judgments have to do with his presumably opinionated Amazon fiance? Might the laws of her people be different? What might she think of this man who rules a land in which a woman cannot decide whom she should or should not marry? How can Theseus and Hippolyta work this out? What if anything could this have to do with interpersonal relationships around here, where fairy dust has been scarce these last couple of centuries?

Hermia's father, Egeus, would determine whom she marries. Should the young lady obey? Over most of human history and over much of the world today, young adults ask their parents' permission to marry -- and usually abide by their parents judgment. Why do people do this? Why don't most Americans? What differences do such practices indicate in a society's appraisal of what love, marriage, family, and self actually are?

Demetrius excites little sympathy in most viewers. But isn't his case pathetic, when one thinks about it? He wants Hermia; perhaps in some sense he loves her. But he's willing to stand by and let her father force her to marry him. He's willing to enter into marriage with an unwilling woman. He must somehow want terribly to be wanted, yet what chance has he of ever being wanted by the woman he lives with if he has forced her to marry on pain of death? One may want to distance oneself from identifying with such a character: "I would never do such a thing!" But how many of us have never been tempted to coerce the love of another? How many never get jealous, for instance?

Our empathy with Hermia's choice often gives us empathy with Lysander. After all, who can't relate to "The course of true love never did run smooth." Whew! But what is he really talking about here? Is he being practical? The lovers will flee Athens risking death, with little or no resources. Is this a responsible young man? Or is this just natural and courageous determination in the face of injustice? Demetrius has successfully petitioned Egeus' support; he may be in a better position to provide for Hermia and for their possible offspring. Does practicality and convenience relate to love? Should it?

By what considerations does Hermia disobey her father who has raised her and sheltered her? For love or attraction, surely. Are our romantic attractions more important than family connections, and if so, when and why? -- especially if a little fairy dust and some leggy friend might change things?

And as long as I'm throwing question marks around, why does Helena want to be a spaniel, and what does that mean to her? It's easy to wince when she forgoes her pride, but is one being fair? If everyone waits until certain that the other will love in return before loving, how can anyone love at all? If one loves only for hope of reward -- only because the other person will love one back -- is that love? On the other hand, is tagging along after someone who has clearly indicated disfavor an act of love or of stalking? How do we differentiate love, affection, desire, lust, lechery, need, infatuation, puppy-love and liking?

So what about the darn fairies? Oberon and Titania -- gee, I'm not sure where the name Oberon comes from. Maybe there's something in it, or maybe not. They're jealous, we know, and not entirely faithful -- more like English sprites or Greek gods and demigods than Christian angels. Oberon has an odd way of striving for Titania's faithfulness: He deliberately makes her fall in love with someone or something else as though to "teach her a lesson" somehow. How does this fit into this picture of Egeus coercing his daughter to love, or at least to marry, Demetrius? If Oberon's jealous, and clearly willing to deceive, why doesn't he attempt to force her to love him. If he's wooing her, why does he deliberately deceive her? Doesn't she have to suspect that Oberon might have something to do with her odd lapse? How does it relate to Theseus having to enforce Athenian law on Hermia before Hippolyta?

Titania's court includes fairies with names like "Peaseblossom," "Mustard Seed," and "Cobweb." These are things one might well find in an English wood or meadow like the ones where Shakespeare grew up -- or the one in which Bottom has become revealed for an ass. There's an interesting bend of reality and fantasy here. Bottom addresses the fairies as though he were speaking to the objects themselves. For instance, someone who cut a finger might stanch the blood with a bit of wadded up cobweb, which is quite soft and absorbent, a sort of silk, really. This would probably have been more common in Shakespeare's day, when paper was much less common. What does this imply about the nature of Bottom's "translation"?

Has Bottom become a donkey, or is he dreaming? Do the fairies' pastoral names imply fertility, fecundity, and, if so, does that therefore suggest love? If Bottom's experience with the Fairy Queen constitutes love, why does such a silly ass get to experience such a thing? Why can or cannot man describe what Bottom experienced? What is it Bottom experienced that it should be so difficult to describe or to grasp? Is there something profound about Bottom's character that it is he before anyone else who manages to have such experience, or is he just a fool? If this is not accidental, what does it seem to say about the nature of human love? Of human attempts to understand the infinite or the spirit world?

And then there's Puck. The name comes from the Greek, but his other name, Robin Goodfellow, is pure English folklore. He's sort of like the WWII gremlin. He makes fun of people and is capable of causing real trouble. If the other fairies personify aspects of the meadow, what might Puck personify as he runs about prompting people to misperceive and to fall in love one after another?

Now, I've been breaking this down by character, but one could look at it in terms of passages just as easily, or in terms of character traits, or kinds of decisions, and how different characters handled corresponding decisions. For instance, Theseus must convince Hippolyte that he's just, perhaps to control her, perhaps unjustly. Egeus wishes to control Hermia. But they do so differently, and to the extent that Theseus can be said to control Hippolyta, he certainly does so differently. Furthermore, Hermia with Lysander, Helena with Demitrius, Oberon with Titania, Titania with Bottom all encounter situations in which they would like to control their partners. They respond differently. How do their responses influence their results, and what does that say about coercion in relations, or at least Shakespeare's views thereon?

And, of course, while love's a prime theme in this play, one could talk about perception or sanity or dreaming instead. I was going to write about passages. What does Shakespeare signal us by replaying the story of the various couples as a farce in the the amateur play within his play? (The ending of that farce, by the way, is almost the same as that of one of Shakespeare's famous plays, by the way, in which it is written and played quite differently!)

Check out Puck's parting apologia as the play ends:

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumb'red here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend.
If you pardon, we will mend.
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call.
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

Is all this business of love real or a dream? If one loves, one misses the absent beloved. Would one miss that absent beloved so if one did not know the person at all? If that's true, can one suddenly need the person when one did not previously need the person at all?

I leave that to you, and I'll try to explain the essays.