Blog Post #2: A Midsummer Night's Dream Act IV-V

Wan-Ting Lin

Blog Post #2: A Midsummer Night's Dream Act IV-V

The focus of this play is not only about the madness of love, but also the coincidence. The love potion makes the characters fall in love with the one they see after the potion takes effect. The four lovers (Demetrius, Lysander, Helena and Hermia) are by chance bumped into the difficulty of love. The love potion makes them become suspect to each other. However, the coincidence in a huge part is performing by Puck, the servant of king Oberon. He misunderstands his king’s word and makes a big mistake, torturing the four young lovers for one night. Shakespeare makes fun of love by creating the love potion which is affected by Cupid’s arrows, expressing that love is blind, mad and by chance.

Puck is the dominator of the love potion who acts as God to control the love inside the play. He pushes through the result of coincidence, making lovers confuse their true feelings. He is smart and magical. He uses his magic to affect the characters in play, making a funny trick to Bottom by turning his head into an ass and letting the four lovers fall into sleep. Actually, Puck is not the main character of this play, but he is very important throughout the whole plots. He functions as the bridge of the real world and the Green World. He deals with the four lovers and the fairy king and queen. Shakespeare expresses the difficulty of love in this play, and Puck is the one who makes the love between lovers become difficult but somehow ending with happiness. Puck’s magic softens the love difficulty between Demetrius and Helena, leading them to a happy marriage. Shakespeare wants to show audience about the chance of love, but Puck somehow comprises the elements of love which makes us think about love is not only by chance but choice. Puck chooses who to be affected by the love potion, making every character feel happy in the end.

Puck: Captain of our fairy band,

Helena is here at hand,

And the youth, mistook by me,

Pleading for a lover’s fee.

Shall we their fond pageant see?

Lord, what fools there mortals be!

Oberon: Stand aside. The noise they make

Will cause Demetrius to awake.

Puck: Then will two at once woo one;

That must needs to be sport alone.

And those things do best please me

That befall prepost’rously.

In act 3 scene 2, Puck and Oberon have an interesting conversation about the mistaken of the love potion. Puck is amazed by the ridiculous love of the young lovers, feeling that mortal beings are crazy in love. In the Green Wood, fairies do not take love seriously. They make fun of the lovers who chase each other in the wood, thinking that their concentration and seriousness toward love is exaggerated. This passage shows that the mistake which Puck has made and the results of the mistake are not taken seriously. The mistake is somehow being caused by chance, but it can also be seen as an intentional act. That is, Puck not randomly chooses Lysander but by the coincidence which Lysander just presented as the description which Oberon gave Puck. The last line of this conversation shows the result is actually out of natural order. Shakespeare uses Puck’s words to reveal that the consequence of the love potion is out of control. That is, love is madness and blindness in real world.