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A Midsummer Night’s DreamPossible Essay Questions Note: these are questions, not thesis statements1. Discuss the dramatic significance of the play within a play, the mirroring subplots, and the levels of awareness to the main theme of Midsummer.2. Imagination is used in dream, in play, in love, and in art. Discuss these uses of the imagination as they appear in Midsummer.3. Discuss the parallel plots in the play as a means of holding four very different groups (and at least as many separate themes) together.4. Discuss the journey through the strange land of the self that the young lovers and others made in Midsummer. In what ways are they changed, what essences are revealed, and what is Shakespeare saying about misleading appearance and ultimate reality?5. Discuss the internal danger and the external perils which afflict Shakespeare's lovers in Midsummer. Be sure to mention doting and comic mirrors.6. How does Shakespeare uses language (prose, blank verse and rhyme) to differentiate between characters (i.e. fairies and mortals; nobility and rustics) or to create other effects (increased solemnity or silliness; poetic effects). 7.Though Bottom often steals the show in performance, Puck is usually considered the most important character in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Comparing Puck to Bottom, why might Puck be considered the protagonist? In what way does Puck’s spirit dominate the mood of the play? In what ways does the comedy surrounding Puck differ from that surrounding Bottom?8. Compare and contrast the Athenian lovers with the craftsmen. In what ways are the dispositions of the two groups different from each other? Are they the same in any way?9. What role do Theseus and Hippolyta play in A Midsummer Night’s Dream? What is the significance of the fact that they are absent from the play’s main action?10. It has been argued that the characters of the Athenian lovers are not particularly differentiated from one another—that Hermia is quite like Helena (even down to her name) and that Demetrius resembles Lysander. Do you think that this is the case, or do you think that the lovers emerge as individuals? If you believe that these characters are quite similar to one another, what do you think Shakespeare’s intent was in making them so?11. Why is Athens an appropriate place for the play to end?12. What is the importance of the forest for the scene of action in most of the play?13. How does Shakespeare use the night, the woods, the fairies to move the plot forward?14. Is Oberon a wise king?15. What is the importance of dreams in this play? How do they affect the outcome?16. What is the symbolic significance of the Changeling Boy?17. Analyze the “dream” motif in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.18. Analyze the theme of “doubling” in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.19. Analyze the tension between romantic heterosexual love and same-sex friendship in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.20. Analyze the theme of “appearance versus reality” in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.21. Analyze the “play within a play” theme of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, thinking in particular of the ways in which Shakespeare uses this device to comment on his own dramatic craft and the enterprise of theater.22. Analyze the comedic qualities and conventions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. 23. Analyze the ways in which A Midsummer Night’s Dream blurs the boundaries between the “fairy world” of Oberon and Titania and the “real world” of Theseus and Hippolyta; Egeus, Demetrius, Lysander, Hermia, and Helena; and Peter Quince, Bottom, and the other “mechanicals.”24. Offer a feminist reading of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, analyzing the ways in which the play critiques (or perpetuates) the constraints of gender roles at the time in which it is set.25. Choose a character (or relationship) from A Midsummer Night’s Dream and write a detailed character analysis that positions the character in the larger issues raised by the play. (Alternatively, choose a passage that particularly pleases and intrigues you; analyze the passage closely, paying attention to language and style, and then contextualize the passage within the larger issues raised by the play.)26. Select a scene (or significant passage) that seems central to your understanding of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and view at least two different film versions of that scene. (If you have a clear memory of a stage performance you have seen, feel free to include that, too.) Write a paper in which you analyze the different production, directorial, and acting decisions played out in the different versions. How does each version indicate an idiosyncratic (or conventional) interpretation? Pay close attention to any details that bring the play alive on screen or stage.27. What is the significance of the settings of the play? What are the major characteristics of each setting (the Duke's palace, Quince's cottage, and the fairy-enchanted woods)? What significance do forests have in other literary works you're familiar with? What about urban settings? What rules and values apply in the different settings? Why is the story set in ancient Greece — would it have been as effective in contemporary England?28. Discuss the meanings of the play's title, A Midsummer Night's Dream. In addition to the title, what other references do you find to dreaming in the play? What relationship is created between dreaming and theater (look, for example, at Puck's final speech)? Why is Midsummer important to the themes of the play?29. The play presents several different couples: Theseus and Hippolyta,; Hermia and Lysander, Helena and Demetrius, Titania and Bottom, and Titania and Oberon. What aspects of love are explored in each of these relationships?30. Gender issues are significant in this drama. What differences are there in the roles and behaviors appropriate to men and women? Do these gender differences still exist today, or are they examples of outdated stereotypes?31. Many contemporary productions of the play cast the same actor in the role of Theseus and Oberon, and also of Hippolyta and Titania. What does this suggest about the functions of these characters in the play? How are the Hippolyta and Titania similar and/or different? Theseus and Oberon?32. The adventures of the four young lovers — Demetrius, Lysander, Helena and Hermia — are a necessary aspect of the play, yet many critics have suggested that these four characters are "indistinguishable." Do you agree? What similarities and differences do you find among their personalities? Do you have a favorite among this group?33. Much has been written about the darker side of this play, its savage, erotic aspects and its violence. For example, the critic Jan Kott finds the eroticism of the play "brutal." On the other hand, the critic Hartley Coleridge says this drama is "all poetry, and sweeter poetry was never written." Which of these critics do you agree with — if either? Overall, is this a sinister, violent, erotic play or a lighthearted, romantic comedy? Support your answer with references from the text.34. What is Shakespeare saying about Magic (or add your own topic)A Midsummer Night’s DreamPossible Essay TopicsPlease note that these are topics and not Thesis Statements.1. The play within a play2. Imagination in AMSND.3. The parallel plots 4. Appearance and ultimate reality?5. Comedy, comedic elements6. Language (prose, blank verse and rhyme)7. Marriage.8. Love 9. The play within the play.10. Dreams11. Contrasts, opposites12. Order and disorder13. Change, transformation Thesis Statements for A Midsummer Night`s Dream6. The main theme of the play is the transitoriness and inconstancy of love?7. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is essentially a ‘poem’ in honour of marriage.8. Love is the play’s major motif9. In AMSND Shakespeare is arguing that without the guidance of the gods/spirits, mankind is lost10. In AMSND Shakespeare is arguing that mortals are fools/blind11. In AMSND Shakespeare is arguing that rational loves should triumph over irrational love12. In AMSND Shakespeare is arguing that cold rationality is superior/inferior to warm emotion/imagination13. The relevance of the play within the play.14. Shakespeare had an important message to deliver through a AMSND, namely that___________________.15. In AMSND, Shakespeare is arguing that there is a union/close connection between mankind and nature.16. AMSND is a defense of the irrational and the imagination against attacks from reason, rationality, logic, science, etc.Study Questions which may be turned into Essay Questions.7. There are four plot levels in A Midsummer Night's Dream: the royal wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta; the story of the Athenian lovers, Lysander, Hermia, Demetrius, and Helena; the conflict between the fairies, Titania and Oberon (seconded by Puck); and the efforts of the "Rude Mechanicals," Bottom, Quince and company, to put on a play worthy of a royal wedding. How are they parallel or contrasted? What do the different plot levels have in common? (e.g. a movement from conflict to harmony; the theme of love triumphing over great odds). How does Shakespeare use these parallel plots (and characters) to unify the play as a whole? 3) Acts I and V take place in the "real" world of Athens (by day), Acts II, III and IV in a dream world, the woods outside the city (by night). Why does Shakespeare make use of the two settings? How can each be characterized? Do they serve any symbolic purpose? Who governs each world? What kinds of power are contrasted? Which is ultimately more powerful? (Does one have an effect on -- transform -- the other?) 4) The play begins with a forced marriage, fighting fairies, and thwarted lovers; it ends with a triple wedding and a newly reconciled pair of Fairy monarchs. In this movement from conflict to harmony, notice how marital/erotic love is used as a symbol of social harmony and concord. Note also the imagery of fertility (natural fecundity vs. blight, but also the implicit fertility of the couples who will be united in marriage.) What are Titania and Oberon fighting about at the beginning of the play? (What is the symbolic significance of the Changeling boy?) 5) The story of Pyramus and Thisbe is taken from Ovid's Metamorphoses, stories about magical transformations. What are some of the transformations in the play? Consider both literal transformations ("Bless thee, Bottom! thou art translated!" [III.i.119-120]) and figurative ones (between day and night, discord and harmony, reality and dream, unhappiness and bliss). 6) Trace the references to dreams and dreaming in the play. What do "dreams" represent? Who presides over the dream world (the forest at night)? What is the power of dreams? Can dreams have an effect on "reality"? 7) Characterize the fairies and their magic. To what extent do they represent natural forces (i.e. the power of nature?) What else might they represent? Notice that the fairies' magic takes place at night, and that it is several times compared to (or mistaken for) dreams. To what extent is their "magic" a double of the playwright's magic, making a "dream" come to life on the stage? In this regard, you may want to consider references to dreams and dreaming, to magic, and to poetry (e.g. Theseus's conversation with Hippolyta in V.1.1-27), as well as Puck's epilogue. 8) It is thought that A Midsummer Night's Dream was first written to be performed at a court wedding. Pyramus and Thisbe is a "play within a play" put on by the "Rude Mechanicals" to celebrate a royal wedding. In Act V, then, we are watching an audience watch a play that is like the play we are watching as an audience. What does this parallelism suggest? What function does the "play within a play" serve? (What is its dramatic significance and thematic relevance to the work as a whole?) Are there parallels between the stories of Pyramus and Thisbe and of the Athenian lovers? (Or with Romeo and Juliet, which dates from 1594-1596 -- the same years as A Midsummer Night's Dream?) In other words, are Bottom and company there only for comic relief, or do they convey a more serious message? If so, what? ................
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