In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare uses the green world and its inhabitants as a symbol of imagination. The characters flee from reality to escape the laws that govern everyday life in Athens. The importance of imagination reveals itself when the constraints of everyday life are lost in this realm. The fact that actors fall asleep multiple times reinforces Shakespeare’s allusion to an escape from reality. Fairies playfully create a magical scene creating a suspension of disbelief for the actors as well as the audience. The problems that these characters face are remedied because of the ability of the mind to create this mythical world. Harmony is restored to the characters’ lives because of their ability to bring fantasy into reality. Shakespeare portrays the power of the imagination as humanity’s most divine quality because it allows one to embrace a realm outside of this world and allows one envision fantasy.
In Athens, laws of the society threaten the characters’ freedom. The “sharp Athenian law” pursues these characters and causes them to escape into the forest. Lysander states, “From Athens her house remote seven leagues;/ And she respects me as her only son. /There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee, /And
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Imagination is responsible for love, poetry, and madness, all of which create an essence of a different realm in society. In the minds of the characters, the fairies in all of these cases have brought life to what is fantasy. Shakespeare portrays this to his audience by allowing the forest to represent the human ability to escape from the coldness of the world into the warmth and majesty of dreams. Helena states, “I will go tell him of Hermia’s flight. These characters enjoy the trickery done unto the humans, which can be used as a metaphor for imagination. The fairies, like dreams, have been able to create an alternate harmonious state for the characters by bringing life to the ordinary and mundane.
Imagination in A Midsummer Night’s Dream allows an escape from society into fantasies. 32) Puck is responsible for misleading humans and plays on their minds.
Helena and Demetrius retreat into the woods, yet these characters are not led into the realm of imagination to escape the persecution of society. The rules of society do not govern their actions as long as they are in the forest. This reference shows the elusive nature of the fairies, and their being. Helena is infatuated with Demetrius, who is infatuated with Hermia. The ability of imagination is responsible for tricking people and leading one into tricking one’s self.
Approximate Word count =
999
Approximate Pages =
4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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