Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary
devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.
Contrast
The idea of contrast is the basic building block of A
Midsummer Night’s 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 Night’s
Dream, with the play’s 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 play’s surreal
atmosphere and is thus perhaps the play’s central motif; there is
no scene in which extraordinary contrast is not present.
