The second act
of Shakespeare's A midsummer night's dream is not the most serious of the
acts, nor is it the most comedic; but it is, however, a very vital piece
of the play. As the act begins with the meeting of two fantastical characters
that, at first glance, are completely oblivious to the conflicts of act
one. Shakespeare creates a gap between fantasy and reality, not only with
characters within the act, but settings as well. He uses the forest to
represent a removal of all human inhibitions, when the characters leave
a city so realistic as Athens and enter the forest they become as fantastical
as the fairies, with this Shakespeare bridges the gap between reality and
fantasy. This bridge also unifies the first and second act within the play,
and setting a stage for the rest of the play.
The next idea played
with by Shakespeare is the thin line between love and hate within the characters.
As the people change their love interests or are the result of a mistake,
they find themselves in many physical conflicts. The fantasy characters
are not exempt from these unfortunate happenings either. Puck is a servant
throughout this act, and when he does something for Oberon he is not to
enthralled with his job. This, unfortunately, spelled comedy and irony
for the rest of the characters within the play.
The acts are bridges
in another way too, as each character seems to have a double in the worlds
of fantasy and reality, or Athens and the forest. Oberon is like Theseus,
Puck is like Philostrate, Titania is like Hippolyta. This helps connect
the acts and further unifies the worlds of each character. This act also
begins a theme that is very crucial to the play; that it is a dream within
a dream, and the reader, or viewer, is slowly sucked into this world created
from the meeting of four different worlds The world of Theseus and Hippolyta,
the world of the lovers, the world of the Great unwashed, and the world
of the fairies.
The second act
really helps perpetuate the conflicts of the first act and draw the reader/viewer
towards the resolution, in addition to demonstrating some of the many themes
threaded within the dialogue. Shakespeare uses the second act as a vital
building block for the play. |
