Just as an artist plays with darkness and light of colors to paint a beautiful picture, Shakespeare uses the darkness and light of phrases and words to control the tone of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (MSND). More importantly Shakespeare’s use of imagery related to the moon symbolizes tone changes throughout MSND. It plays such a key role that the workers include the moon, or Moonlight more specifically, as a character in their performance of Pyramus and Thisbe. When the Moonshine says, “All that I have to say is to tell you that the lantern is the moon,” (Act 5.1.254-5) the irony shines through since that is all the moon has to say even though the moon is such an important image in MSND. Shakespeare ever so subtly slips the moon into Pyramus
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These glimmers of light are sometimes actual light in the play or in other cases Shakespeare lightens up the tone of the play with humor by using sarcasm. Throughout Act 5, the rulers and lovers make fun of the play that the workers are performing. One example of this is in Act 5.1.244-246 when Theseus says, “This is the greatest error of all the rest; the man should be put into the lantern. How is it else the man I’th’moon?” In Act 5.1.268-270, an example of the imagery of the actual light begins with “Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams,” and concludes with the alliteration, “gracious, golden, glittering, gleams.” The alliteration is not the only literary device that Shakespeare uses in those lines as “sunny beams,” is paradoxical when referring to a moon. To summarize, in Act 5, the moon’s bright light is what shines through the crazy night that all had …show more content…
After referencing the impact that the moon plays in telling the story, it is clear that the moon is another group, similar to the audience, that collaborates with each of the groups in MSND. The moon is another overlapping circle that interacts with both the inner and outer worlds that we spoke of in lecture. In Pyramus and Thisbe, the play within a play, the moon is an actual character, and the only character from the outer world that transcends the play and then overlaps with the four groups of the outer world. How else could Shakespeare weave in a symbol that connects these inner and other worlds? Obviously, this is a rhetorical question, because it can clearly be done only by the bright shining light of the
These glimmers of light are sometimes actual light in the play or in other cases Shakespeare lightens up the tone of the play with humor by using sarcasm. Throughout Act 5, the rulers and lovers make fun of the play that the workers are performing. One example of this is in Act 5.1.244-246 when Theseus says, “This is the greatest error of all the rest; the man should be put into the lantern. How is it else the man I’th’moon?” In Act 5.1.268-270, an example of the imagery of the actual light begins with “Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams,” and concludes with the alliteration, “gracious, golden, glittering, gleams.” The alliteration is not the only literary device that Shakespeare uses in those lines as “sunny beams,” is paradoxical when referring to a moon. To summarize, in Act 5, the moon’s bright light is what shines through the crazy night that all had …show more content…
After referencing the impact that the moon plays in telling the story, it is clear that the moon is another group, similar to the audience, that collaborates with each of the groups in MSND. The moon is another overlapping circle that interacts with both the inner and outer worlds that we spoke of in lecture. In Pyramus and Thisbe, the play within a play, the moon is an actual character, and the only character from the outer world that transcends the play and then overlaps with the four groups of the outer world. How else could Shakespeare weave in a symbol that connects these inner and other worlds? Obviously, this is a rhetorical question, because it can clearly be done only by the bright shining light of the