A Midsummer Nights Dream Shakespeare’s treatment of illusion and realit

A Midsummer Nights Dream Shakespeare’s treatment of illusion and reality in the play A Midsummer Nights Dream is a comedy written by William Shakespeare, it is a play about lovers and includes madness, mayhem, magic and illusion. The title tells us of the inevitable confusion to come, as in Elizabethan times ‘A Midsummer Night’ was a festival linked with mayhem and chaos, and the fact it is a ‘dream’ conjures up ideas of illusion and fantasy. The play has two settings, Athens which represents reality, order and daylight and the woods, the world of the fairies, which symbolize illusion, magic, and a place of darkness. There are three main groups of characters the courtiers, the workmen and the fairies whose actions form four different plots within the play. 1. The wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta 2. The love affairs between Hermia, Lysander, Demetrius and Helena 3. The workmen’s play, its planning, rehearsal and performance 4. The quarrel between Oberon and Titania A Midsummer Nights Dream itself is an illusion, and to enjoy it you must temporarily suspend reality. Love is an important theme in the play, whether it is true love or induced by magic; it inhibits people’s ability to distinguish what is real or simply an illusion. The play begins in Athens, with the preparations for the forthcoming marriage of Theseus, Duke of Athens, to Hippolyta Queen of the Amazons. The use of these characters at the beginning of the play gives it a real sense of importance. Egeus enters with a complaint against his daughter Hermia; she refuses to wed Demetrius who has her father’s consent to marry her, but Hermia is in love with Lysander. Egeus believes his daughter could not possibly truly love L... ...thing beautiful and magical. There are references throughout the play to moonlight; this helps to set up the nighttime scenes, as the play would originally have been played in the daytime. The moon was thought to affect people’s behaviour. This idea is portrayed in the play; the characters act irrationally during the nighttime scenes, and appear to gain clarity as the daytime returns. The young lovers awake, unsure of what they have experienced, and believe they have simply been dreaming. Puck has the final speech in the play and speaks directly to the audience; he refers to himself and his fellow actors as shadows within a dream, this reminds us that we have been part of an illusion just like the characters in the play. He ends asking the audience to clap this signals the end of the performance, and the illusion created by ‘A Midsummer Nights Dream’. A Midsummer Nights Dream Shakespeare’s treatment of illusion and realit A Midsummer Nights Dream Shakespeare’s treatment of illusion and reality in the play A Midsummer Nights Dream is a comedy written by William Shakespeare, it is a play about lovers and includes madness, mayhem, magic and illusion. The title tells us of the inevitable confusion to come, as in Elizabethan times ‘A Midsummer Night’ was a festival linked with mayhem and chaos, and the fact it is a ‘dream’ conjures up ideas of illusion and fantasy. The play has two settings, Athens which represents reality, order and daylight and the woods, the world of the fairies, which symbolize illusion, magic, and a place of darkness. There are three main groups of characters the courtiers, the workmen and the fairies whose actions form four different plots within the play. 1. The wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta 2. The love affairs between Hermia, Lysander, Demetrius and Helena 3. The workmen’s play, its planning, rehearsal and performance 4. The quarrel between Oberon and Titania A Midsummer Nights Dream itself is an illusion, and to enjoy it you must temporarily suspend reality. Love is an important theme in the play, whether it is true love or induced by magic; it inhibits people’s ability to distinguish what is real or simply an illusion. The play begins in Athens, with the preparations for the forthcoming marriage of Theseus, Duke of Athens, to Hippolyta Queen of the Amazons. The use of these characters at the beginning of the play gives it a real sense of importance. Egeus enters with a complaint against his daughter Hermia; she refuses to wed Demetrius who has her father’s consent to marry her, but Hermia is in love with Lysander. Egeus believes his daughter could not possibly truly love L... ...thing beautiful and magical. There are references throughout the play to moonlight; this helps to set up the nighttime scenes, as the play would originally have been played in the daytime. The moon was thought to affect people’s behaviour. This idea is portrayed in the play; the characters act irrationally during the nighttime scenes, and appear to gain clarity as the daytime returns. The young lovers awake, unsure of what they have experienced, and believe they have simply been dreaming. Puck has the final speech in the play and speaks directly to the audience; he refers to himself and his fellow actors as shadows within a dream, this reminds us that we have been part of an illusion just like the characters in the play. He ends asking the audience to clap this signals the end of the performance, and the illusion created by ‘A Midsummer Nights Dream’.