A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Study Questions

That Shakespeare takes his characters from vastly different sources (e.g., the bumbling, rough craftsmen and the delicate, fanciful fairies) contributes to the imaginative scope and pervasive absurdity of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Shakespeare combines the contrasting elements of the play in startling and grotesque ways, as in the royal Titania’s love for the ass-headed Bottom. He thus creates the sense that the normal rules and operations of reality have been suspended: if the magical Titania can fall in love with the ludicrous Bottom, anything can happen. The play’s extraordinarily varied frame of reference, which includes elements of Greek mythology (Theseus and Hippolyta), aspects of the contemporary London theatrical tradition (males playing females in the craftsmen’s play), characters of Babylonian origin (Pyramus and Thisbe) and from English fairy lore (Puck), and classical literary analogues (Titania and Oberon), adds to the surreal quality of the play by juxtaposing elements that clash stylistically.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream fits into four acts all of the material that would normally occupy a five-act play; the main story, climax, and even a period of falling action are capped by a happy turn of events that would seem to mark the play’s end. It is somewhat strange, then, that Shakespeare includes a fifth act. Since he has already resolved the tensions of the main plot, he treats Act V as a joyful comic epilogue. Except for a short closing scene, the act is committed wholly to the craftsmen’s performance of Pyramus and Thisbe. In wrapping up the conflict before the last act, Shakespeare affords himself the opportunity to give the audience one act of pure, uncomplicated comedy. He offers a play-within-a-play whose comical rendition caps the cheerful mood of the Athenians watching the play.