William Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream illustrates the wavering love between characters Lysander, Hermia, Demetrius and Helena. Shakespeare highlights that humans are primarily governed by individual emotion, rather than reason. This is very apparent in the passage, at the beginning of Act Five. Theseus states: “Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, such shaping fantasies that apprehend more than cool reason ever comprehends” (5.1. 4-6). This passage is important because it stresses two conflicting concepts: reason and love (emotions). There’s a fluctuating nature of love between characters; here, reason become non-existent. The characters experience passions and delusions, which reason cannot explain. Logic is organized and
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Conflict and confusion occur in the woods; moreover, characters question valuable relationships. For instance, Hermia’s dream gives her the impression that Helena (serpent) has stolen the love of Lysander. Hermia persists: “Help me, Lysander; help me; do thy best to pluck this crawling serpent from my breast. Ay me, for pity! What a dream was here! Lysander, look how I do quake with fear. Methought a serpent eat my heart away, And you sat smiling at his cruel prey” (2.2.152-157). The illusion of Hermia’s dream creates strife and tension between herself and Helena; ruining years of friendship. However, Lysander is the one renouncing his love for Hermia, and is ultimately to blame. Overthrown and driven by emotions, Hermia relies on her dream as a source of knowledge and truth; further, becoming void of reason. In the book, A Midsummer Night’s Dream: A Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Keith Sagar discusses the concepts of reason and imaginative dreams in the forest. Sagar states: the dreams in Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream are metaphors. “Like woods, night, and fairies, for the altered state of the consciousness in which mere reason relaxes its grip and allows other powers and modes of perception to flood in, for those ‘casual zones of the psyche’ peopled by archetypal images; for, in a word, imagination” (41). Here, Sagar synthesizes the powerful illusions of dreams. They take …show more content…
The “puppets” or characters are being manipulated by the fairies, controlling their movement. The composition and colouring of the image is dark, except for the source of light being omitted around the fairies. This illustrates the power the fairies hold, they are seen as a source of knowledge. One of the puppets (a female) seems to be distorted and in pain by the manipulation, while the other puppet (a male) looks to be following the orders of the fairies. This visual can be interpreted as the characters, such as Lysander and Hermia, being victimized by the fairy world, or Magical Forest. For instance, Hermia seems to be affected the most by persuasive illusions and dreams, losing the love of her beloved Lysander. However, Lysander takes no pain or ownership of his betrayal to Hermia. Further, blindly following and going along with the manipulative properties of magic. In a Midsummer Night’s Dream, power and manipulation are prominent themes: the character’s emotions and power integral, because whoever controls love, can do anything. The characters, for instance, Hermia, place a lot of emphasis and importance to love; therefore, they are more accessible to be manipulated by the magical world. Oberon states: “It fell upon a little western flower, before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound. And maidens call it love-in-idleness” (2.1.172-173). With the power of magical induced
Conflict and confusion occur in the woods; moreover, characters question valuable relationships. For instance, Hermia’s dream gives her the impression that Helena (serpent) has stolen the love of Lysander. Hermia persists: “Help me, Lysander; help me; do thy best to pluck this crawling serpent from my breast. Ay me, for pity! What a dream was here! Lysander, look how I do quake with fear. Methought a serpent eat my heart away, And you sat smiling at his cruel prey” (2.2.152-157). The illusion of Hermia’s dream creates strife and tension between herself and Helena; ruining years of friendship. However, Lysander is the one renouncing his love for Hermia, and is ultimately to blame. Overthrown and driven by emotions, Hermia relies on her dream as a source of knowledge and truth; further, becoming void of reason. In the book, A Midsummer Night’s Dream: A Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Keith Sagar discusses the concepts of reason and imaginative dreams in the forest. Sagar states: the dreams in Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream are metaphors. “Like woods, night, and fairies, for the altered state of the consciousness in which mere reason relaxes its grip and allows other powers and modes of perception to flood in, for those ‘casual zones of the psyche’ peopled by archetypal images; for, in a word, imagination” (41). Here, Sagar synthesizes the powerful illusions of dreams. They take …show more content…
The “puppets” or characters are being manipulated by the fairies, controlling their movement. The composition and colouring of the image is dark, except for the source of light being omitted around the fairies. This illustrates the power the fairies hold, they are seen as a source of knowledge. One of the puppets (a female) seems to be distorted and in pain by the manipulation, while the other puppet (a male) looks to be following the orders of the fairies. This visual can be interpreted as the characters, such as Lysander and Hermia, being victimized by the fairy world, or Magical Forest. For instance, Hermia seems to be affected the most by persuasive illusions and dreams, losing the love of her beloved Lysander. However, Lysander takes no pain or ownership of his betrayal to Hermia. Further, blindly following and going along with the manipulative properties of magic. In a Midsummer Night’s Dream, power and manipulation are prominent themes: the character’s emotions and power integral, because whoever controls love, can do anything. The characters, for instance, Hermia, place a lot of emphasis and importance to love; therefore, they are more accessible to be manipulated by the magical world. Oberon states: “It fell upon a little western flower, before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound. And maidens call it love-in-idleness” (2.1.172-173). With the power of magical induced