TSR Wiki > Study Help > Subjects and Revision > Revision Notes > English > A Midsummer Night's Dream - Notes
Themes
The fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.
Love’s Difficulty (“The course of true love never did run smooth”)
Imbalance and lack of symmetry at the opening of the play is redressed as the play goes on.
- Unrequited love: Helena + Demetrius (“The more you beat me, I will fawn over you”, “We should be woo’d and not made to woo”, “I am sick when I do not look on you”, “Things base and vile, holding no dignity, Love and transpose to form and dignity” “Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind/And therefore is winged Cupid”…and many others)
- Tumultuous Love: Oberon + Titania (“Ill meet by moonlight, proud Titania”, “Am I not your lord”)
- Forbidden Love: Hermia + Lysander (“Oh hell! To choose love with another’s eyes!”)
Quest for an internal balance to be restored by the play’s completion.
Magic
- Magic as an embodiment of the supernatural
- Love as a magical or supernatural power (Symbolised by the love potion).
- Magical Power of the love to transform.
- Mis-use of love causes chaos (Puck’s mistake)
- Magic ultimately restores balance – “Concord through discord (or agreement through disagreement)”
- Love when guided by magic has its own (surreal) internal logic (like a Dream)
Dreams
The action of the play can be seen as a dream:
- Strange hybrid creatures/magic/fairies
- Bathed in moonlight, the world of feeling rather than thinking, the action takes on a surreal, subconscious quality.
- Sense of illusion crucial to the atmosphere of the play.
Motifs
Recurring structural devices, contrasts or literary devices that help to develop and inform the major themes.
Contrasts/Doubles
- Interchange-ability: Helena + Hermia, Theseus + Oberon, Lysander + Demetrius. (refer to Epstein and your essay)
- Emotions are exaggerated
- Contrasts (Differences): Helena is tall (“painted maypole” while Hermia is short), Titania is stunningly beautiful + Bottom is grotesque
Symbols
Objects, character, figures or colours used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
- Moonlight – reflected light, world of feeling/subconscious, night-time world + activities (which include emotion, love dreams, sex) (also in other notes) “Like a sliver bow, new bent in heaven”
- Forrest – Unpredictable space, dark place, limitless possibilities, sanctuary, labyrinth, confusion. “Man’s hart is like a dark forest”
- Love Potion – A symbol of the irrational erratic + undeniably powerful nature of love _ the bizarre behaviour that can take place a result of.
Rational world ruled by the son, Irrational world ruled by the moon.
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