A Midsummer Night’s Dream Essay: Importance of the Nighttime Forest

A Midsummer Nights Dream The Importance of the Nighttime wood In Shakespeares play A Midsummer Nights Dream the colored forest is the center of the world, relegating Athens, center of the civilized Greek world, to the periphery. solar day gives way to dark, and mortal rulers leave the stage to be replaced by fairies. The surplus properties of night in a forest make it the perfect scenery for the quartette lovers to set out on a project of self-discovery. Shakespeare implies that in darkness, reliance on senses other than eyesight leads to true filling. In A Midsummer Nights Dream, the nighttime forest, by disrupting and transforming vision, forces introspection and improvisation that help the four lovers on their way to self-understanding. The darkness of the night setting seems particularly central in a play (and a culture) where the voice communication of love relies so heavily on sight imagery. Fairy magic literalizes the connection betwixt love and sight appropriately , Oberons love juice is applied to the eyes. In the language of the play, to look on or at someone is the most parkland metonymic expression for falling in love with a naked person, or for spending time with the one you already love. Lysander steels himself and Hermia against the trial of insularity with a call to starve our sight / From lovers food till morrow doubtful midnight (1.1, ll. 221-2). Vision and hunger together become the elements of Lysanders metaphor about lovers and separation to see is to be with, and a lovers company is elevated in magnificence to the need for food and drink. But Hermia and Lysander are not going to see each other by the light of day. The scant light of midnight-midnight, when cut across and dusk are both equally far off-will provide all... ... which connotes shallow feeling (Garber 10/13) the word dote is instead reserved for exposition of his former feelings about Hermia (4.1 ll. 163-73). His feelings for Hermia are the ones that have me taphorically been snuffed out by the dawn, melted as the snow before the sun (4.1 l. 163). What began in night as magic, as introspection and improvisation, has in daylight solidified into blockheaded feeling. Although he speaks of Helena being the object and pleasure of his eye, the visual metaphor is accompanied by a proclamation of the faith and virtue of his hearts loyalty (4.1 ll. 166-7). Introspection allows keener observation new ways of looking enrich more than ordinary types of sight. Night teaches the four lovers how to see more clearly during the day. whole works CitedShakespeare, William. A Midsummer Nights Dream. New York Washington Square Press, 1993.