PLOT THEMES MOTIFS IN A MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM
- Slides: 18
PLOT, THEMES & MOTIFS IN A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
PLOT
SETTINGS Athens Forest (Chaos controlled by law) (Lovers quarrel & fairy mischief)
LOVE The play focuses on the difficulties of love. It shows how the heart can be broken, but it can also be repaired. Love is a state that is often out of balance in this play. Is Shakespeare satirising love in this play?
ACTS v Act 1: In Athens, Theseus prepares for his wedding to Hippolyta, Egeus states Hermia must marry Demetrius (not Lysander her lover), Hermia and Lysander run off together. v Act 2: Lysander and Titania are affected by Puck’s love juice, Lysander falls in love with Helena. v Act 3: Puck turns Bottom’s head into a donkey’s and Titania falls in love with Bottom, Oberon causes Demetrius to love Helena, Hermia fights with Helena because she thinks she betrayed her, Oberon tells Puck to correct the situation. v Act 4: The young lovers awaken in love with their true loves, Demtrius tells his father he wants to marry Helena and Bottom gets his real head back. v Act 5: Lots of weddings: Theseus & Hippolyta, Lysander & Hermia, Demetrius & Helena, Bottom and the mechanics perform their play, Oberon and Titania bless the marriages.
THEMES v Love and marriage v Order and disorder v Appearance and reality v Imagination
LOVE & MARRIAGE “The course of true love never did run smooth. ” -Lysander Specific scenes to review: v Act 1 Scene 1 v Act 2 Scene 1 v Act 3 Scene 2 v Act 4 Scene 1 v Act 5 Scene 1
LOVE QUOTES v “The course of true love never did run smooth” –Lysander I, 1 v “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind. And therefore is wing’d. Cupid painted blind” –Helena I, 1
ORDER & DISORDER v Act 1 Scene 1 v Act 2 Scene 1 v Act 3 Scene 2 v Act 4 Scene 1 v Act 5 Scene 1
APPEARANCE & REALITY Things are often not as they seem. Scenes: v Act 3 Scene 1 v Act 3 Scene 2 v Act 4 Scene 1 v Act 5 Scene 1
IMAGINATION The unconscious, the magical, the mysterious. Scenes: v Act 4 Scene 1 v Act 5 Scene 1
MOTIFS A motif is an object (symbol) or idea (theme) that repeats itself throughout the text. Recurring imagery or elements. v Nature v Moon v Sleep/dreams v Eyes v Plays/roles v Magic
NATURE v The magical world of the forest contrasts with Theseus's court. It is disrupted by the disharmony between the fairy king and queen.
THE MOON v The Moon symbolises change, disruption and unpredictability, romance, and the magical. v 'Therefore the moon, the governess of floods, / Pale in her anger, washes all the air. . . ' Act 2 Scene 2 v 'We the globe can compass soon, / Swifter than the wandering moon' Act 4 Scene 1 v 'Now the hungry lion roars, / And the wolf behowls the moon' Act 5 Scene 1
SLEEP & DREAMS v When we sleep and dream we are transported to mysterious places, and we are in a state of innocence and vulnerability. Sometimes boundaries between fantasy and reality are blurred. The dreaming relates to love; it is also confusing. The inclusion of dreams makes the love a more lighthearted element rather than a tragic element that focuses too significantly on emotions. v 'Ay me, for pity! what a dream was here!' Act 2 Scene 2 v 'It seems to me / That yet we sleep, we dream' Act 4 Scene 1 v 'God's my life, stolen hence, and left me asleep! I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream. . . ' Act 4 Scene 1 v 'Why, then, we are awake: let's follow him / And by the way let us recount our dreams' Act 4 Scene 1
PLAYS & ROLES v symbols of magical transformation and of experimentation
MAGIC v The unseen, the unpredictable and that which can’t be explained.
EYES v Eyes are the windows to the soul, a gateway to the heart v 'Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind' Act 1 Scene 1 v 'Reason becomes the marshal to my will / And leads me to your eyes, where I o'erlook / Love's stories written in love's richest book' Act 2 Scene 2 v 'And then I will her charmed eye release / From monster's view, and all things shall be peace' Act 3 Scene 2 v 'Methinks I see these things with parted eye, / When every thing seems double' Act 4 Scene 1 v 'The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, / Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven. . . ' Act 5 Scene 1
- Symbols in a midsummer night's dream
- Adrian midsummer nights
- So many nights i sit by my window
- Midsummer
- Robin starveling
- Act 5 scene 1 midsummer night's dream
- Irony in a midsummer night's dream
- A midsummer night's dream introduction
- Sleepless ~a midsummer night’s dream
- Situational irony in midsummer night's dream
- Imagery in a midsummer night's dream
- Puck's final speech
- A midsummer night's dream essay questions
- Why does oberon send puck to fetch helena?
- Motifs in odyssey
- Themes motifs and symbols
- Madness theme in hamlet
- Hamlet themes and motifs
- Motifs in 1984