A Midsummer Night's Dream Flashcards
What happens in act 1 scene 1?
- Theseus is marrying Hippolyta in 4 day days. Theseus can’t wait for the wedding whilst Hippolyta has contrasting feelings
- Egeus then arrives asking for Thesus’ opinion on th efact Hermia wants to marry Lysander rather thn his choice of Demetrius
- Thesus offers a third option to Hermia which is to become a nun
- After everyone has left, Lysand plans for them to escape to the woods to his rich dowager aunt
- Helena arrives where she immediately shows jealousy towards Hermia because demetrius loves Hermia rather than her
- In order for Demetrius to like her, she is going to tell him the young lover’s plans and then she will follow him
What happens in act 1 scene 2?
- A group of craftsmen are organising to perfom PYramus and Thisbe at Thesus and Hippolyta’s wedding
- Bottom is playing the part of Pyramus but due to his self - heightened acting ability, he wants to play all of the parts which annoys Quince
- They then decide to go to the woods that evening so they can practice in secret
What happens in act 2 scene 1?
- Oberon and Titania are fighting over an Indian mortal child but their discord is causing disruption in the mortal world
- Oberon wants Puck to retrieve a flower that contains the love juice so she falls in love with the first thing that she sees and Oberon hopes it is something ugly
- Helena tries to sexually entice Demetrius but then he threatens her with sexual violence
- Oberon wants concord so he wants Puck to the love juice on Demetrius’ eyes as well
What happens in act 2 scene 2?
- Titania falls asleep and the love juice is put in her eyes
- Hermia and Lysander are arguing over the progression of their relationship as Lysander wants to sleep with her with Hermia wants to hold onto her courtly values
- Puck mistakes them for Helena and Demetrius so he puts the love juice on Lysander’s eyes
- Lysander wakes up and falls in love with Helena which confuses Hermia as she was left in the woods alone
What happens in act 3 scene 1?
- The mechanicals are practicing in the woods so they can be hidden from the public
- They are arging over decisions within the play such as how to get moonlight and if there should be a prologue
- Puck transforms Botoom into an ass and the others fells perplexed and fearful so they leave
- Titania wakes up and falls in love with Bottom. Due to her passion, her fairies dote on him
What happens in act 3 scene 2?
- Oberon watches Hermia questioning Demetrius over Lysander’s safety as she believes Demetrius killed him
- Oberon realises Puck’s mistake and he puts the love juice over Demetrius’ eyes to add to the chaos
- Helena argues over Lysander’s behaviour as she believes he is doing it as a prank againast her. When Hermia arrives, Helena believes she is in on the joke and she tries to convince her to tell her the truth by using their long friendship
- Demetrius falls in love with Helena
- Lysander starts to show his distain for Hermia making her question their relationship
- Helena and Hermia begin to fight
- Lysander and Demetrius run off into the woods so they can fight one another and the ladies follow in haste
- Oberon realises the stupidity of the love juice so he plans to take it off Titania (to get the Indian boy) and Lysander to make the night seem a dream
- Puck taunts Lysander and Demtrius as they are hiding from one another since they can’t find each other, they and the women fall asleep creating comic closure
What happens in act 4 scene 1?
- Oberon wakes Titania up soshe can realise her irrantional relationship with Bottom
- Thesus and Hippolyta are hunting when they find the perplexed young lover who beleive the night’s actions were a dream
- Demetrius states his dead love for Hermia to Egeus who still wants to use the law against his daughter as he fails to recognise true love
- Thesus allows the young lovers to get married on their wedding day
- Bottom wakes up confused about where everyone is and then, the night’s actions which he will use as inspiration for a song in the play
What happens in act 4 scene 2?
- Bottom arrives back to Athens much to the delight of the other mechanicals
- It is revealed that their play has been chosen for the wedding
What happens in act 5 scene 1?
- Theuseus questions the strangeness of their dream and believes it to be mad
- Philostrate arrives with a list of potential entertainment until the wedding feast and Pyramus and Thisbe is chosen
- Quince opens the play with a prologue introducing the characters and saying it isn’t real
- When the lovers are talking through the wall, Theseus makes crude and sarcastic remarks causing Bottom to break the forth wall to corect him
- The play continues until the young lovers both die in a similar ending to Romeo and Juliet
- The fairies bless the marriage bed and Shakespeare provides an epilogue through Puck telling the audience it may have been a dream
Who is Puck?
- A licensed fool as he is allowed to use satire to poke fun at society and their masters
- The lord of misrule who orchestrates chaos and entertainment
Who is Bottom?
A natural fool who are simple and lower class characters who may provoke cruel laughter at them or sympathetic laughter for their sweet innocence. They may lack intelligence yet provide insight and truth
What are the roles of comedy?
- To mock authority
- To subvert the status quo
- To invert accepted social hierachies
- To challenge the social and political system
- To trangress what is normally accepted, including social and sexual taboos
What are the theories of laughter?
Superiotity theory: we laugh because we feel superior
Relief theory: we laugh as a result of a build -up of tension, repressed emotion, awkwardness etc
Incongruity theory: we laugh at mismatched elements or ideas suchas the high and low being brought togther; the juxtaposition of incompatable things
How can it be considered a conservative genre?
Order is usually reinstated by the end implying inversion and rule - breking are only temptations of social change
What are stock characters?
They come from a long tradition of comic drama. We laugh at the universal aspects of human nature as well as the cultural and literary expectations of the genre as their personalities show the extremity of human nature. Egeus as an overbearing father
