A midsummer nights dream, Hamlet & Romeo and Juliet

A midsummer nights dream & Romeo and Juliet

Both plays focus on love, and the consequences of love. They both also have forbidden love, and they
both address the influence and oppressive nature of society. They both kind of involve magic. The
difference is that there is really only the potion in Romeo and Juliet and much more magic in A
Midsummer Night's Dream.

It seems to me that in a sense Romeo and Juliet is the other side of A Midsummer Night's Dream - the
tragedy that this comedy could have turned in to. Remember that at the beginning of both plays the
position seems to be rather similar - starcrossed lovers who pursue a relationship that is rejected at the
cost of death by parents and society. It is only through the intervention of Oberon and Puck that tragedy
is averted in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and I think the showing of Pyramus and Thisbe at the end of
the play acts as a chilling reminder of the story that could have been instead of the happy ending of the
comedy.

They both have elements of comedy--R & J has the scenes with the nurse (A sail! A sail!) and
with Mercutio and his wild and silly side. MSND is written as a comedy right off the bat so it's
easier to spot.

Both plays have characters who are in love with someone who does not return it (Romeo is
infatuated with Rosaline who does not love him...which leads him to Juliet).

Parental control is a theme that is strong in both plays. Romeo and Juliet are both controlled by
their parents and their ancestors' feud. Juliet is ordered by her father to marry Paris in order to
get out of their funk over Tybalt's death.

The whole reason the couple in MSND run off into the woods is that her father will not approve
marriage to the one SHE loves; rather he favors the one she doesn't fancy.

A Midsummer Night's Dream certainly has more comedic elements; there is little humor in Romeo and
Juliet. The common themes in the two Shakespeare plays include love (at first sight), misplaced love and
mistaken identities.

Transcript of Similarities in Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer

Nights Dre
Comedy
Both
Romeo and Juliet
and A
Midsummer Nights Dream
have a comedy factor in them.

Examples-
Romeo and Juliet
: Nurse's joke about Juliet on her back
A Midsummer Nights Dream
: The Fairy Queen Falling in love with a Donkey
(Resources 3)
Love
Both of the plays involve the themes of love

Examples-
Romeo and Juliet
: Romeo and Juliet forbidden love
A Midsummer Nights Dream
: The love between the 4 characters
(SparkNotes 4)
Sources
"A Midsummer Night's Dream." A Midsummer Night's
Dream. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2015.

"Compare and Contrast Romeo and Juliet and A

Midsummer Nights Dream Have Themes That Are Common and Are
Different. ... - Homework Help - ENotes.com." Enotes.com. Enotes.com, n.d.
Web. 08 Mar. 2015.

"Resources for Teachers." Themes in A Midsummer

Night's Dream. Royal Shakespeare Company, n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2015.

SparkNotes. SparkNotes, n.d. Web. 06 Mar. 2015.

Parental Control
In both of the plays parental plays a big part. (Compare 2)
Examples-
Romeo and Juliet
: They're controlled by their parents and their ancestors' feud

A Midsummer Nights Dream

: The arranged marriage between two of the characters
Similarities in Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Nights Dream
Arranged Marriage
Both of the plays involve themes of arranged marriage

Examples-
Romeo and Juliet
: The marriage between Paris and Juliet
A Midsummer Nights Dream
: Hermia's marriage with Demetrius (Midsummer 1).
Both A Midsummer Night's Dream and Romeo and Juliet like many of Shakespeare's plays are based on
love triangles and unrequited love. For the first big difference you must look at the main part of the
story that causes it to become a comedy or tragedy. In R&J (Romeo and Juliet) the lovers DO NOT run
away together as soon as they realize they are in love instead they are separated when Romeo is
banished. In Dream (A Midsummer Night's Dream) The lovers escape Athens at the beginning of the play
instead of being subjected to their family's whims. Take Paris as Demetrius, a high born noble who
would be a perfect match if his romantic interest was not already in love. But instead of Having a Helena
to peruse him Paris is left on his own with no true love interest except to morn over Juliet until his
eventual death. Paris is not bad, he adds a past and an alternative future to the play, think about what if
he had someone who was desperately in love with him, would she have been friends with Juliet? Would
she have pushed Juliet into escaping with Romeo and then pursued Paris like Helena did to Hermia and
Lysander? But that bring me to another major difference, Reality vs. Fantasy

R&J is strictly placed in the world of the that we inhabit today (if 700 years ago-taking that the original
poems is based in 13th century Italy). There is no magic or mystery in this Christian based universe. This
is a situation that can easily be imagined today with smitten lovers; remember Juliet is only 13 and
Romeo little older they could easily be a friend of yours in a couple of years time smitten with their first
love (we are adding a few years as times have changed). While Dream is Pre-Christian and blurs the lines
between reality and the realm of magic. The entire play becomes a forgotten Dream at the end and no
one is too sure what was a "shadow" and what was reality.

Finally what is the message of each play? While both plays are certainly about unrequited love what is
the sense of these plays? R&J is very much political as it goes through the trails and tribulations of
feuding families, the conflict is caused by past wrongs and the inability to let your children make there
own mistakes on the other hand while Dream is about Athenian law (if fictional) it does not concentrate
on this conflict or further explore it. Dream is very much about a love triangle between friends and
rebellion of youth; the play is also about what happens when two worlds mix (the fairies and ours).

While these are basic ideas to expand on just remember to look at the similarities and then consider
what makes them differ to cause happiness or tragedy. Think about what you would do in each situation
and then think about the emotions you would feel. Confusion, lust/love, pain (Dream) and fear,
love/lust, hope (R&J) and think how these differ in real life. Remember to give short effective quotes
about each scenario you choose as they help justify your arguments

COMEDY AND TRAGEDY IN SHAKESPEARE OFTEN CO-EXIST--WHAT IS HUMOROUS IN MND MAY NOT BE
IN R & J. RULES FOR DRAMATIC COMPOSITION IN SHAKESPEARE'S DAY SAID THAT COMEDY AND
TRAGEDY DID NOT MIX--SHAKESPEARE ON THE CONTRARY WAS AHEAD OF HIS TIME AND KNEW THAT
THEY DID. PLAYS WRITTEN LATER IN HIS CAREER THAT BLEND THE TWO ARE: HAMLET AND KING LEAR.
Midsummer Night's Dream
3 Pages
815 Words

A Midsummer Night's Dream The story "A Midsummer Night's Dream" tells about a group

of characters that fall in love with each other. However, the whole play is all a dream. The dream

also contains dreams within dreams. For example, Hermia had a dream where she fell in love with an

ass, and at the end of the play Puck tells everyone that the whole deal was a dream, and that none of

this really happened in real life. The title describes the story for it must have taken place in the

midsummer type season and was a dream. The play at the wedding is like a play within a play, for "A

Midsummer Night's Dream" is a play itself. William Shakespeare was a great English playwright,

dramatist and poet who lived during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Shakespeare is

considered to be the greatest playwright of all time. No other writer's plays have been produced so

many times or read so widely in so many countries as his. Shakespeare's plays are usually divided

into three major categories. These are comedy, tragedy, and history. "A Midsummer Night's Dream"

had 5 subplots. These included: the lovers, the fairies, the wedding, the workers, and interlude. These

subplots are made with all the elements of the story. The interlude was the play at the end of the

story, after the wedding. All the lovers at the wedding saw the play, which was performed by the

workers. The fairies confused lovers and caused them to marry different people, such as Puck when

he put the juice in the wrong person's eyes. Thus the wedding took place and they got married.

Without the workers, there would have been no play for the wedding. Lysander, Hermia, Demetrius,

and Helena are the four of the young lovers, who have a relationship with each other, but each of

them doesn't love whom they must marry at first. For example, Demetrius was in love with Hermia,

until later on he was juiced with "love potion". From there he started to love Helena, which was his

lover...
Themes, Symbols, & Motifs

Loves Difficulty

The course of true love never did run smooth, comments Lysander, articulating one of
A Midsummer Nights Dreams most important themesthat of the difficulty of love
(I.i.134). Though most of the conflict in the play stems from the troubles of romance,
and though the play involves a number of romantic elements, it is not truly a love story;
it distances the audience from the emotions of the characters in order to poke fun at the
torments and afflictions that those in love suffer. The tone of the play is so lighthearted
that the audience never doubts that things will end happily, and it is therefore free to
enjoy the comedy without being caught up in the tension of an uncertain outcome.

The theme of loves difficulty is often explored through the motif of love out of balance
that is, romantic situations in which a disparity or inequality interferes with the harmony
of a relationship. The prime instance of this imbalance is the asymmetrical love among
the four young Athenians: Hermia loves Lysander, Lysander loves Hermia, Helena
loves Demetrius, and Demetrius loves Hermia instead of Helenaa simple numeric
imbalance in which two men love the same woman, leaving one woman with too many
suitors and one with too few. The play has strong potential for a traditional outcome,
and the plot is in many ways based on a quest for internal balance; that is, when the
lovers tangle resolves itself into symmetrical pairings, the traditional happy ending will
have been achieved. Somewhat similarly, in the relationship between Titania and
Oberon, an imbalance arises out of the fact that Oberons coveting of Titanias Indian
boy outweighs his love for her. Later, Titanias passion for the ass-headed Bottom
represents an imbalance of appearance and nature: Titania is beautiful and graceful,
while Bottom is clumsy and grotesque.

Magic

The fairies magic, which brings about many of the most bizarre and hilarious situations
in the play, is another element central to the fantastic atmosphere of A Midsummer
Nights Dream. Shakespeare uses magic both to embody the almost supernatural
power of love (symbolized by the love potion) and to create a surreal world. Although
the misuse of magic causes chaos, as when Puck mistakenly applies the love potion to
Lysanders eyelids, magic ultimately resolves the plays tensions by restoring love to
balance among the quartet of Athenian youths. Additionally, the ease with which Puck
uses magic to his own ends, as when he reshapes Bottoms head into that of an ass
and recreates the voices of Lysander and Demetrius, stands in contrast to the
laboriousness and gracelessness of the craftsmens attempt to stage their play.

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Dreams

As the title suggests, dreams are an important theme in A Midsummer Nights Dream;
they are linked to the bizarre, magical mishaps in the forest. Hippolytas first words in
the play evidence the prevalence of dreams (Four days will quickly steep themselves in
night, / Four nights will quickly dream away the time), and various characters mention
dreams throughout (I.i.78). The theme of dreaming recurs predominantly when
characters attempt to explain bizarre events in which these characters are involved: I
have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what / dream it was. Man is but an ass if
he go about texpound this dream, Bottom says, unable to fathom the magical
happenings that have affected him as anything but the result of slumber.

Shakespeare is also interested in the actual workings of dreams, in how events occur
without explanation, time loses its normal sense of flow, and the impossible occurs as a
matter of course; he seeks to recreate this environment in the play through the
intervention of the fairies in the magical forest. At the end of the play, Puck extends the
idea of dreams to the audience members themselves, saying that, if they have been
offended by the play, they should remember it as nothing more than a dream. This
sense of illusion and gauzy fragility is crucial to the atmosphere of A Midsummer Nights
Dream, as it helps render the play a fantastical experience rather than a heavy drama.

Motifs
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and
inform the texts major themes.
Contrast

The idea of contrast is the basic building block of A Midsummer Nights Dream. The
entire play is constructed around groups of opposites and doubles. Nearly every
characteristic presented in the play has an opposite: Helena is tall, Hermia is short;
Puck plays pranks, Bottom is the victim of pranks; Titania is beautiful, Bottom is
grotesque. Further, the three main groups of characters (who are developed from
sources as varied as Greek mythology, English folklore, and classical literature) are
designed to contrast powerfully with one another: the fairies are graceful and magical,
while the craftsmen are clumsy and earthy; the craftsmen are merry, while the lovers
are overly serious. Contrast serves as the defining visual characteristic of A Midsummer
Nights Dream, with the plays most indelible image being that of the beautiful, delicate
Titania weaving flowers into the hair of the ass-headed Bottom. It seems impossible to
imagine two figures less compatible with each other. The juxtaposition of extraordinary
differences is the most important characteristic of the plays surreal atmosphere and is
thus perhaps the plays central motif; there is no scene in which extraordinary contrast
is not present.

Symbols
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or
concepts.
Theseus and Hippolyta

Theseus and Hippolyta bookend A Midsummer Nights Dream, appearing in the daylight
at both the beginning and the end of the plays main action. They disappear, however,
for the duration of the action, leaving in the middle of Act I, scene i and not reappearing
until Act IV, as the sun is coming up to end the magical night in the forest. Shakespeare
uses Theseus and Hippolyta, the ruler of Athens and his warrior bride, to represent
order and stability, to contrast with the uncertainty, instability, and darkness of most of
the play. Whereas an important element of the dream realm is that one is not in control
of ones environment, Theseus and Hippolyta are always entirely in control of theirs.
Their reappearance in the daylight of Act IV to hear Theseuss hounds signifies the end
of the dream state of the previous night and a return to rationality.

The Love Potion

The love potion is made from the juice of a flower that was struck with one of Cupids
misfired arrows; it is used by the fairies to wreak romantic havoc throughout Acts II, III,
and IV. Because the meddling fairies are careless with the love potion, the situation of
the young Athenian lovers becomes increasingly chaotic and confusing (Demetrius and
Lysander are magically compelled to transfer their love from Hermia to Helena), and
Titania is hilariously humiliated (she is magically compelled to fall deeply in love with the
ass-headed Bottom). The love potion thus becomes a symbol of the unreasoning, fickle,
erratic, and undeniably powerful nature of love, which can lead to inexplicable and
bizarre behavior and cannot be resisted.

The Craftsmens Play

The play-within-a-play that takes up most of Act V, scene i is used to represent, in

condensed form, many of the important ideas and themes of the main plot. Because the
craftsmen are such bumbling actors, their performance satirizes the melodramatic
Athenian lovers and gives the play a purely joyful, comedic ending. Pyramus and Thisbe
face parental disapproval in the play-within-a-play, just as Hermia and Lysander do; the
theme of romantic confusion enhanced by the darkness of night is rehashed, as
Pyramus mistakenly believes that Thisbe has been killed by the lion, just as the
Athenian lovers experience intense misery because of the mix-ups caused by the
fairies meddling. The craftsmens play is, therefore, a kind of symbol for A Midsummer
Nights Dream itself: a story involving powerful emotions that is made hilarious by its
comical presentation.