A Midsummer Night's Dream Thesis
- M. W. Upham
- Jun 20
- 11 min read
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by William Shakespeare is a comedic drama centering around the love lives of many unique characters. “Shakespeare uses the supernatural to instill chaos in his characters to create comedy for his Elizabethan audience. It is the mixture of these two conflicting traits that makes the story and the supernatural theme enduring.” This is the thesis for this scholarly paper, which will be supported by an analysis of the plot, drawing on academic resources and a study of Elizabethan and contemporary culture.
Our story begins with four main human characters. Hermia, who loves Lysander and is loved back. Demetrius, who is also in love with Hermia, and Helena, Hermia’s best friend, who is in love with Demetrius. This situation is made only more complicated when Hermia’s father orders her to marry Demetrius. Though no one can control a woman's heart and so Hermia and Lysander run away into the mystical forest, followed closely by Demetrius and Helena.
To focus on the supernatural within “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by William Shakespeare, we must analyze the work of the fairies and their discord. Within the mythical forest exists the fairy kingdom where the fairy queen Titania and the fairy king Oberon are caught in a squabble. Titania is the ‘guardian’ of a changeling boy, but Oberon wants to take him as a personal servant. Oberon is a prime example of how the supernatural can instill chaos while also creating comedy. His actions seem very whimsical, rather than being guided by any moral code. He seems to love meddling in others' lives needlessly, whether meddling for good or bad is decided by his whimsy.
Supernatural beings act with supernatural abilities, and the abilities within this play come from a flower that can cause a person to immediately fall in love with the first thing they see. Much of the chaos caused by this supernatural element serves as comedy for our audience.
Oberon commands his jester Robin Goodfellow, also known as ‘Puck’, to fetch this flower so he may play a trick on the queen. While Puck is fetching the flower, Oberon witnesses Demetrius wandering through the forest, followed by Helena, who is trying to convince him of her love. When Puck returns, Oberon commands him to also make Demetrius fall for Helena to end their love dispute. Of course, he is unaware that Hermia and Lysander are within the woods, and the spell is cast on Lysander for Helena, which marks the beginning of our supernatural comedic chaos to support the thesis. To correct this error, Puck makes Demetrius also fall in love with Helena. Poor Hermia is angered and confused, feeling betrayed by her love, while Helena thinks that this is all some despicable joke at her expense. Puck later uses the supernatural flower to remove the spell on Lysander, returning his love for Hermia, while Demetrius is left under a spell for eternity to love Helena, resolving the mortal conflict.
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is not the only play that utilizes the supernatural. Shakespeare used the supernatural to push along the plotline in several other stories, such as Hamlet, Macbeth, and The Tempest. When analyzing Hamlet, the Ghost of King Hamlet reveals to his son, Hamlet, that he was murdered by his uncle. This is used as a plot device to push Hamlet into feigned madness in an attempt to gather more evidence that his uncle was the culprit for his father's murder. Similarly to fairies, “Elizabethan audiences believed in ghosts, and it was not a far-fetched device for Shakespeare to introduce a ghost in this play” (Irfan).
In the play “Macbeth” by William Shakespeare, three witches tell a prophecy to Macbeth that he will one day be king. His wife, eager to speed up this process, convinces Macbeth to slay the current king, Duncan. However, he would not have done this if he were not convinced of his future success as king. Meanwhile, Banquo also received a prophecy from the witches that his children would one day hold the Scottish throne. Unlike Macbeth, he does not act on his ambitions, which does not lead to betrayal and murder.
Yet it can be argued that it is the supernatural witches who cause the chaos that drives the story of Macbeth. When the witches appear during a thunderstorm of their creation at the start of the play, it sets the tone for the supernatural events that are to occur, as well as the tone of the play itself. This would have been especially frightening to an Elizabethan audience, as “magic and devilry were on people’s minds in 1606, the year Macbeth was first performed. England’s new Scottish king James was known to his subjects as a committed opponent of witchcraft and a scholar of black magic” (Tosh). However, the usage of the supernatural within “Hamlet” and “Macbeth” is much darker than in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, where magic is used comedically.
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” was published in 1600. The Elizabethan Age spanned from 1558 to 1603, during which Elizabeth I was the Queen of England. “The Elizabethan Age is known by some as England’s Golden Age because it was a prosperous time. It’s also known for its developments in culture. Things like theatre, art, and architecture” (Luxton). This provided the perfect environment for Shakespeare to write his popular playwrights. “Elizabeth thought that having theatre, music and art at her court made her look like an educated and prosperous monarch, so she encouraged them by supporting artists, actors and musicians” (Lewis). With a culture that craved constant entertainment, reinforced by Queen Elizabeth, who held the arts in such high esteem, it is no surprise that Shakespeare was extremely popular during this time.
When we consider Elizabethan culture in reference to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by William Shakespeare, we must analyze the fairy queen and the prank that was pulled by her husband, Oberon. Oberon commands Puck to trick the fairy queen Titania into falling in love with Nick Bottom. A playwright who is transformed to have the head of a donkey.
A few speculate that the fairy queen from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by William Shakespeare is a representation of Queen Elizabeth I herself. However, there is one important difference between the character and the person. For Queen Elizabeth I never married, but the fairy queen Titania is tricked into falling in love with donkey-headed Nick Bottom, in another instance of supernatural bringing comedy and chaos. It is speculated that this could be symbolic that Queen Elizabeth would only marry if she was unwillingly tricked into doing so. “Her supposed ability to resist temptation and passion was representative of her power and integrity. Although a clear reference to the queen, these lines do not put Shakespeare’s career in danger like some of his less obvious allusions might” (Wordpress.com).
However, it is more likely that Shakespeare meant to remark on the humor of raunchiness, commonly seen in his rural upbringing in Stratford and London around midsummer months, such as May and June. He was clever in using supernatural elements and fairies to make this commentary, as these were popular interests of the Elizabethan people of the time. Dr. Will Tosh from Shakespearesglobe.com states, “Midsummer was one of the most popular and keenly-observed festivals throughout the early modern period. Rural communities marked it with Morris dancing, processions, late-night drinking, the blessing of crops and the ritual banishment of devils and other unwelcome sprites – precisely the sort of pagan-originating, Catholic-saint-encompassing mishmash that Protestant reformers despised” (Tosh). Shakespeare uses supernatural elements to directly correlate with the romantic issues of his main cast, using the supernatural as a partial cause for the raunchy behavior and lascivious activities during the springtime months.
The supernatural within Shakespeare’s many plays is enduring due to its fantastical nature. Shakespeare is not the first poet or author to use the supernatural, and won’t be the last. Within A Midsummer Night’s Dream, we have a clear problem and a clear solution with the introduction of fairies and magical flowers. Something to consider when thinking critically is whether the fairies possess other magic that they could have used within the play. Shakespeare is smart not to explore this, knowing that each supernatural element that is introduced results in additional explanations to make the plot understandable. He introduces just enough supernatural to enthral and amuse the audience.
Shakespeare uses something commonly classified today as “soft magic”, meaning the rules and mechanics of magic are not clearly defined or explained. We can see soft magic represented today by many modern stories such as Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, and Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Similarly to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by William Shakespeare, The Lord of the Rings has a magical character in Gandalf the Grey. Much like the magic within our play, Gandalf’s magic is not thoroughly explained. This works in both stories because the characters controlling the magic are not our main characters. They exist to offer their magic, then disappear when it is convenient for the story. Hard magic systems are designed around how the magic should work. Meanwhile, soft magic systems are designed around the narrative of the story, as we see in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”.
In the story “Harry Potter” by J. K. Rowling, magic is used as a tool by witches and wizards. However, their magic is limited to the spells they know. Therefore, similarly to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, the audience has no idea what sort of spell/magic will be used next to continue pushing forward the plot. Though the magic we do know does have rules, for example, we know that some spells can be parried, and we later learn that the magic flower can be used twice to remove the effects. These magic systems are classified as soft because we don’t have a complete set of rules and regulations for these abilities; however, by applying guidelines to the magic we are aware of, Shakespeare’s audience doesn’t feel cheated by the existence of the supernatural within his play. In this way, the supernatural elements of Shakespeare’s piece are enduring within today's contemporary culture.
In “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” our main supernatural element exists within the fairies and their magical world. Though society's media today is unsure how to treat these beings. Some media portray fairies as innocent, well-meaning helpers like the blue fairy from Pinocchio or the Fairy Godmother from Cinderella. However, many pieces of media portray fairies as monstrous, deceiving tricksters, such as Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty or Jareth from the Labyrinth. One thing that most renditions of fairies share is that they like to meddle in the lives of humans and enjoy pulling pranks. No one is sure where the myth of fairies originated, but William Shakespeare writes fairies as both tricksters and well-meaning helpers.
We see the fairies act as tricksters when Oberon tricks the fairy queen into loving a man with an asses head. This is very similar to when Jareth from the Labyrinth tricks Sarah into wishing her brother away so that he may kidnap him. Yet in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, it is also the fairies who resolve the love square of our main characters. Similarly, the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella provides her with everything she will need to capture the heart of the prince. This shows that Shakespeare crafted much of the representative narrative for fairies that we still use in modern media. As said by Aungchai Mong Marma, “A Midsummer Night's Dream reinforces the idea that the supernatural can be both enchanting and dangerous, and caution should be exercised when treading its waters” (Marma).
The lasting supernatural theme of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is incredibly true to the original. It is the supernatural elements and how they are used by the characters within this play that drive the plot forward. Without the fairies' tricks, the love square couldn’t bring humor to our audience as we witness the wrong man being charmed. However, it also couldn’t be resolved, allowing each individual to love the correct suitor. Without the fairies spell, Queen Titania couldn’t be charmed into loving an ass. “The supernatural elements in A Midsummer Night's Dream help create complex and believable characters. They give characters a sense of agency, and they also help explain their motivations and actions” (Marma).
The original performance of this play occurred during daylight on a simple stage of an Elizabethan Playhouse with little to no scenery and a minimum number of props. When changes are made to this play, it is typically regarding the characterization of our cast. Some renditions have male characters cast as female. Others introduce music, such as the 1692 operatic success by Henry Purcell, to portray the characters' feelings and motivations. Some renditions of this play craft it to better suit issues of the time, such as “In 2001 at the Albery Theatre, Dawn French played a female Bottom as a member of the Women's Institute helping the war effort in 1940s England” (Royal Shakespeare Company). However, the supernatural usually stays relatively the same, because much of the driving force of the play would be gone if the supernatural didn’t work as an important foundation to the story.
Shakespeare’s legacy is enduring due to his exploration of universal experiences such as jealousy, love, and heartbreak. However, it is also his masterful use of the supernatural that makes his stories stand the test of time. Hamlet could not have known of his uncle’s guilt without the supernatural ghost. Macbeth would not have acted with violence without the witches' prophecy. Without the fairies, the love square of our main characters would not reach its resolution.
The idea that fairies are meddling pranksters has become so ingrained in society, partly due to the narrative groundwork laid by Shakespeare. We see Oberon and Puck cause chaos not only for our four main characters, but also for the fairy queen in a dastardly mix of mischievous humor and sympathy. The usage of the fairies' spell causes chaos and conflict for our characters, and humor for his audience. However, it is these same defining traits that have caused it to stand the test of time.
Michelle Terry and Paul Ready from Shakespearesglobe.com speak on this briefly during their podcast. To summarize: ‘The play has only become more relevant as our world dives deeper into chaos with the rise of climate change. It’s difficult to think that such a thing is our responsibility, and so much easier to classify the events as something caused by the supernatural. However, in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by William Shakespeare, these chaotic events can be explained away by fairies and their humorous tricks.’
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by William Shakespeare has stood the test of time because of the way the supernatural theme is utilized. He was able to enchant his audience with magical forests where chaos could be written off as the work of the supernatural. When analyzing the future of this play, we can rest assured that so long as our world lives in chaos, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by William Shakespeare will always be there to give us relief that it was simply caused by a few mischievous fairies.
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