Plot construction & Aspects of Love in A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Written by BunPeiris

“Are you sure That we are awake? It seems to me
That yet we sleep, we dream” 
[A Midsummer Night’s Dream: William Shakespeare]

Plot construction

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a comedy composed and stage directed by the foremost dramatist, the ultimate humanist writer ever. But Shakespeare would not follow the accepted norms: it isn’t confined to a romantic love of a noble couple. Will’s love of all is displayed herein too, by means of his accommodation to the working class amidst the royals and nobles. Therein too, Shakespeare deviate form classical Greek dramas. [1] Beginning with no more than four days run into the wedding of the mythological Greek hero, the Athenian ruler, Thesisis and Hippolyta, a queen of equally mythological Amazons [2], a warrior race of women, the citizens are on a festive mood. A comedy cannot, perhaps get any better; the love is in the air, beginning with the palace of the ruler himself. Soon, the love would even spread into woods. Still better, bunch of fairies would join in, to meddle and muddle. But then, in the end, they too do better: merrily help the human characters have their arms around their betrothed. A comedy cannot get any better, following a dream of psychological battering to the lovers in the dreamy midnight yet to the hilarity of the audience.

Like all of Shakespeare’s plays, A Midsummer Night’s Dream follows a five-act structure. The comedy with the wedding as the binding force consists of no less than four plots with characters that remain remarkably distinct throughout in each plot, inadvertently or deliberately getting mingled with the affairs of other characters in another plot. Thereby, the four plots are woven into one whole seamless comedy by the master weaver. The plot construction, in terms of effectiveness, is scintillatingly consummate.

Each act of the comedy is composed of two scenes with the exception of act five which is in fact a play, within a play, a tale of a tragedy made hilarious by a bunch of craftsmen.

In the act one, the play begins with a show of impatience on the part of two lovers, who would be married in four days’ time: Theseus, a mythological Greek hero and Athenian ruler with equally mythological Hippolyta, a queen of Amazons, a mythical race of women-warriors. Immediately, two sets of lovers are introduced to the audience. But then the conflict too is brought into the light straight away. While Hermia and Lysander are in love with each other, Helena’s love towards Demetrius is not returned. Worse still, to throw a spanner into the festive fabric of the city state, Egus, father of Hermia, petitions the ruler, the soon to be groom, to sanction the death sentence to his daughter, in line with an existing Athenian law, for her refusal to marry Lysander. Egus, whose sole merit could perhaps is that he reminds all, as later on the spirit Puck remarks, “Lord, what fools these mortals be!” [a], would rather have his daughter killed than granting her marriage to her lover, Demetrius. Theseus, who himself has fallen in love with Hippolyta, is sympathetic towards Hermia and Demetrius. However, he is unable to bend the existing Athenian law of father having the last word on the life of an errant daughter who wouldn’t comply by the paternal order on marriage. Thus the drama that began with peace following the defeat of Amazons, happy royal lovers, incoming wedding between the victorious ruler and the defeated queen and celebrations in the country, now turns out to be off balance. A daughter of a noble family could either be killed by her own father or exiled to nunnery for the rest of her life in the very prime of her youth. Therein are sown the seeds of the conflict.

In the act two, the audience is carried off, in one deft stroke by Will, as smooth as silk, to the dream like domain of merry and mischievous bunch of fairies, who live in the woods. Audience takes the transition from reality to fantasy on its stride: no hiccups. King Oberon, Queen Titania and Puck, who in their love meddle in helping the human lovers, but then creates a muddle. Puck, the captain of fairies has mistaken Lysander for Demetrius and has put the charm resulting in Lysander too loving Hermia. But the audience get the feeling, the fairies are quite capable of streamlining the flow of affairs, as such enjoy the comical consequences of Puck’s blunder that hurts the tender hearts of Hermia as well as Helena. But then, hearts of audience are not tensed at all. The comedy goes on with the merry audience enjoying.

In Act three, while the whole city state of Athens is getting ready for the celebrations, a merry bunch of Athenian workmen close ranks to stage a play, in their own humble talents, to entertain the royalists, nobles and the citizens. They begin to rehearse “Pyramus and Thisbe.” The rehearsal makes the audience sunk in laughter at their bungling efforts in staging a high drama, a tragedy. In their blunders, the tragedy becomes a comedy. As if the antics and comics of the amateur dramatists wouldn’t do, Titania, thanks to the magical enchantment of Puck at the behest of Oberon, who is displeased with his queen in view of her love of human boy, falls in love with Bottom, whose head is no more human: he has been fantastically transformed, also by Puck. Titania, a queen to her very fingernails, falls in love, head over heels, with the ass headed Bottom and engage in public display of same amidst all fairies, amusing the audience to no end. Her adoration of Bottom is supremely comical sinking the audience to the high water mark in comicalities. Anchored with utter fun, is Bottom. The manner he glides into a dreamy luxurious wave of the heartthrob of a queen is pure fun. Pampered to the boot by a host of fairies, he plays in with his whimsies and fancies. Had he ordered peel him a grape, there would have been a bunch of fairies to please his highness the Bottom. The spirits and fairies, though mischievous and carefree are sympathetic towards the humans. Therein are mingled the characters in each plot involving with the affairs of the others, carrying each plot to a happy ending, i.e. human lovers, spirits and fairies, workman at rehearsal.

In Act four, Titania is disenchanted. Bottom is restored back to his true human form by Puck. Bottom’s reappearance in human form makes his gentle friends delighted. Still more, Puck makes corrections to his blunder by making Lysander once again loving Hermia and over and above it making Demetrius too loving Helena. The one who refused love too return the love where it is due and duly embraced. The audience wouldn’t expect more; all lovers secure their beloved. The comedy has its happy ending.

The act five is in fact a play within a play. Shakespeare does this Hamlet too. It is a drama for the entertainment at the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta. It is a traditional tale of tragic love: the young lovers, separated by the animosity of their parents and through a misjudgment kill themselves. It seems the craftsmen, in spite of their sincerity, in spite of their desire to rise to the occasion, have no sense of the mood of the occasion and celebrations of the royal wedding: a tragedy wouldn’t suit the royal wedding. But then, thanks to the bungling blunders of the craftsmen, who by any means are steeped in the dramatic sophistication, the tale of tragic love becomes a hilarious entertainment. Though there are sophisticated dramatists contending to stage a play to entertain the royalty and nobility, not to forget the citizenry, Theseus, being forever in his fairness, declares the good intentions of the craftsmen deserves an opportunity.  Thus the craftsmen get their opportunity. After all, sincerity deserves its due place in all matters. All the lovers are married to the right person. Thus all plots, all strands are woven together harmoniously. The comedy ends in a triple wedding on the same stage.

Discuss different aspects of love portrayed in Midsummer Night’s Dream

A Midsummer Night’s Dream conveys the irrationality of love: in the very words of Pundit Bottom, “reason and love keep little company nowadays.” [c] But then, being deprived of love tantamount to be denuded of all the fun.  And then, love and lust make the world go round there would not be comedies without love also presents love in its various aspects: romantic love reciprocated; romantic love unreciprocated or unrequited love; motherly love, brotherly love; sisterly love. As if all that would not do, it makes an effort to convey, if non-human beings exist, they too could be quite capable in love too. Will may have taken a leaf from the multitude of gods loving and protecting their favorite human in the epic poems The Iliad and the Odyssey.

Theseus and Hippolyta, Lysander and Hermia and even Oberon and Titania bring in tsimony of romantic love in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Romantic love that takes places between a couple of opposite sex is driven by the concept of care and share in between the lovers. In midsummer Night\s dream, Hermia love of Laysander is such, she  prefers to subject herself to the cruelest punishments; either death at the hands of her own father,  or exile into a nunnery for the rest of her life. Helena’s love is such, she dares to chase after him, seek and locate Lysander in the woods in the midnight.

As Lysander tells Hermia, “the course of true love never did run smooth”. [a] Confronted with possible death or confinement in a nunnery for therest of life, Hermia, would hardly be as philosophical as Lysander. Even if she does not expect a smooth passage, she would not have never expected the ultimate cruelty on the part of her own father. She would in suffer in every possible way: loss of her life or banishment into celibacy; loss of her lover; loss of her father, whom she would not be able to see as the same man who sired.

Having said that, one must hasten to say, romantic love, often, is troubled by the obstacles. But then, since romantic love is expected to be culminated in marriage that form the basic unit of the civilization, the family, the societal factors come into play. Often romantic love is beseiged with one or another or several complications. Age differences, wealth disparities, class differences, warring factions and poverty  lead the complications. However, romantic love is the kind of love that the lovers sacrifice their lives on behalf of the other. Romantic love could compete for the crown with motherly love.

Motherly love in the comedy is presented in the form of Fairy queen Titania’s love of a human boy, She would not part with him even for “whole kingdom of fairyland,” much to the annoyance of her husband, King Oberon.

Fairy love, a concept unheard among the humans, is brought into the drama. For her refusal to entrust the boy to her husband, she would be made a love a human with an head of an ass, by the magic and trickery of Puck, the fairy captain, at the behest of her husband. They they love each other, their interaction could turn out to be weird.

A human romantic couple would not ask the other one something or someone she or he has in possession. Human romantic couples believe in the concept that everything is theirs; not one’s or other’s: they share all. Furthermore risking the loved one’s integrity by making he or her loving another romantically is a situation, not often heard.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream also brings in unrequited love. Helena’s love is one sided: she is scorned at every turn by Demetrius. Demetrius, in the end return Helena’s love. Bu, then again, it is thanks a magic love potion brought in from the fairyland by a fairy captain Puck who philosophies what fools humans are. Since this would not take place in real life, unrequited love would, most often, would remain same, in spite of the passage of time. However, appaentlely taking sides with Bottom, the Pundit of the comedy, who claims that reason and love keeps little company, Will seems to suggest that a non-other than a love could bring in reason to the unrequited love. Will, in his love for all, would not leave Helena in the wilderness at all. Perhaps there was no other way the comedy could end with triple weddings.

Love following war is another aspect of love seen in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Theseus has only begun to love Hippolyta only after defeating the Amazon queen in battle. He has won her love by “doing her injuries.” Once enemies become lovers and get married. If love conquers all, it may conquer the visitors too. After all, it is a tolerable situation.

Irrational Love
Puck having seen Bottom rehearsing play, and displeased of his incompetence in playing Pyramus, turns Bottom’s head into a head of an ass. Bottom, unaware of his transformation thinks it was a trick on the part of Snout and Quince to desert him. Puck carries on his mischief upon his queen too, anointing her eyes with drop of magic portion of love. Being unaware of her vulnerability, Titania , upon waking up and seeing Bottom, falls in love with him: “on the first view, to say, to swear, I love thee.”
Bottom  becomes confused of Titania’s declareation of love at first sight, reveals his his philospical side: “methinks , mistress, you should have little reason for that, And yet to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.” [c]

Therein Bottom presents the central theme of the drama: that love could hardly be rational. Puck too suggests that love does not contain philospical or scientific arguments.  Puck also marks the contrast between the human lovers, completely absorbed in their emotions, and the magical fairies, impish and never too serious: “Lord, what fools these mortals be!

Helena, who is determined to win the heart of Demetrius says: “love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind/And therefore is winged Cupid is blind” Once again, herein is exemplified is the irrationality of love. To be in love is to be in a state similar to a dream, where normalcy is displaced by the fanciful and the bizarre. Love, in fact could be a form of madness. When love potion causes Titania, queen of the fairies, to fall in love with Bottom, a lower-class man who, under a spell, has an ass’s head, Will comically illustrated that love is blind.

There’s a comical irrationality to Demetrius and Lysander suddenly fighting over Helena when both had moments before in love with Hermia. While these particular love contretemps takes place in a fairy forest, love in daytime Athens is depicted as equally irrational: why does Theseus fall in love with Hippolyta or Hermia with Lysander? We must simply accept that it happens. END. Written by bunpeiris.

Footnotes 1
Remember all the Shakespearean quotes incorporated in this essay.
[a] “Lord, what fools these mortals be!”
[b]”Ay me, for aught that I could ever read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth”
[c] “And yet,to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together
nowadays.”
[on top] “Are you sure That we are awake? It seems to me
That yet we sleep, we dream” 

Footnotes 2
[1] Although Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides emerge from history as the great names associated with Greek tragedy, there were scores of other dramatists who achieved renown over the course of classical antiquity. The triumphs of many playwrights at the Dionysia are recorded on inscriptions and in other sources. In the end, it isn’t clear why the works of only three tragedians have come down to us—or why these three, in particular—except that subsequent generations put this trio in a class above their peers. Despite so narrow a slice of history, occasionally a glimpse of the larger pool of writing talent at work in the day drifts into view, for instance, the late fifth-century tragedian Agathon. While no play of his survives entire, several other Greek authors mention him, including the philosophers Aristotle and Plato and the comic poet Aristophanes. According to Aristotle (Poetics 9), for instance, Agathon “invented plots,” by which Aristotle must mean that he devised the first dramas based on original storylines, i.e. build around characters not taken from older myths or tales. If so, Agathon’s contribution to drama is hard to disparage, inasmuch as the creation of new and innovative plots is still held in high esteem today. Moreover, we learn from Plato’s Symposium, a philosophical treatise which is set in Agathon’s house at a party celebrating his first place award for playwriting at the Dionysia of 416 BCE. From Socrates’ praise of the beauty and subtlety of Agathon’s drama there, it is impossible not to regret its loss.
[source: www.usu.edu/markdamen/ClasDram/chapters/071gktragaes.htm.]

Worse yet, even the dramatic output of the surviving trio is not particularly well accounted for. From the hundreds of plays Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides composed, a mere thirty-three have been preserved whole, and of those only one is a satyr play, Euripides’ Cyclops, the sole representative of its genre to have been transmitted in manuscript form to the modern age. It is rather ironic to note, then, that in antiquity Aeschylus was almost as well known for his satyr plays as his tragedies, a reputation that endured for centuries. To wit, a Roman mosaic created half a millennium after the Classical Age depicts Aeschylus directing not a tragedy but a satyr play.

Likewise, the Roman poet Horace mentions Eupolis and Cratinus, two famous playwrights of Old Comedy, in the same breath with their contemporary and rival Aristophanes, which suggests Horace held all three in relatively equal esteem. Today, however, only Aristophanes’ works survive whole. This litany of loss serves as a serious reminder that our picture of classical drama is far from complete, making reconstruction a difficult but inevitable aspect of dealing with theatre in this age.

[2] In Greek mythology, the Amazons (Greek: Ἀμαζόνες, Amazónes, singular Ἀμαζών, Amazōn) were a tribe of women warriors related to Scythians and Sarmatians. Apollonius Rhodius, at Argonautica, mentions that Amazons were the daughters of Ares and Harmonia (a nymph of the Akmonian Wood). They were brutal and aggressive, and their main concern in life was war. Herodotus and Strabo place them on the banks of the Thermodon River. According to Diodorus, giving the account of Dionysius of Mitylene (who in turn drew on Thymoetas), the Amazons inhabited Ancient Libya long before they settled along the Thermodon. Migrating from Libya, these Amazons passed through Egypt and Syria, and stopped at the Caïcus in Aeolis, near which they founded several cities. Later, Diodorus maintains, they established Mytilene a little way beyond the Caïcus.  Aeschylus, in Prometheus Bound, places the original home of the Amazons in the country about Lake Maeotis, and from which they moved to Themiscyra on the Thermodon. Homer tells that the Amazons were sought and found somewhere near Lycia.
[source] www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazons.

[3] Pyramus and Thisbe, hero and heroine of a Babylonian love story, in which they were able to communicate only through a crack in the wall between their houses; the tale was related by Ovid in his Metamorphoses, Book IV. Though their parents refused to consent to their union, the lovers at last resolved to flee together and agreed to meet under a mulberry tree. Thisbe, first to arrive, was terrified by the roar of a lioness and took to flight. In her haste she dropped her veil, which the lioness tore to pieces with jaws stained with the blood of an ox. Pyramus, believing that she had been devoured by the lioness, stabbed himself. When Thisbe returned and found her lover mortally wounded under the mulberry tree, she put an end to her own life. From that time forward, legend relates, the fruit of the mulberry, previously white, was black.
The story was told in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women, and a farcical version is acted by the “rude mechanicals” in William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
source: www.britannica.com/topic/Pyramus.