Mr_Shank

Act III, Scene I

Act III begins with a scene involving the “actors”.  While the six are rehearsing their play they run into some problems that Bottom starts to point out.  He believes that the women in the audience will be scared if his character kills himself with a sword.  This shows how they are continuing a belief that the audience will not be able to separate the fantasy of the story from the reality that it is just a play.  If you remember, in my last post, I said that Shakespeare was using two different settings to merge the fantasy world and real world together in order to make the audience believe in what is happening.  Why does Shakespeare use two completely different views within the same play?

The next problem that comes up in the play is how they will be able to portray certain things such as moonlight and a wall.  The actors decide that the way to deal with this is to have someone put into a costume that represents the moon and to have someone play a wall and hold their fingers apart to represent the cracks in it.  This brings back the idea that the men believe the audience has a strong imagination: with any costume, they can play any object.  The idea of visually having someone represent the moon makes me wonder if the actors lack their own imagination.  The way they are planing to portray the moon shows how they take everything too literally, instead of using their “acting skills” to let the audience imagine the moon (which they are certainly capable of, seeing as the women will grow faint when Bottom is “killed”).  This, once again, shows the incongruity of the actors which brings me back to my original question – why does Shakespeare use two completely different views with the same play?

Act III, Scene II

In this scene, the action of the play is at its height and is ultimately the most confusing scene so far.  All the characters are interacting with the others, or believing they are, without even seeing them.  Again, the theme of the scene is love and all the different forms it can come in.  Here is an example, using a quote from Helena.

Is all the counsel that we two have shared, 

The sisters’ vows, the hours that we have spent 

When we have chid the hasty-footed time 

For parting us—oh, is it all forgot?

All schooldays’ friendship, childhood innocence? 

We, Hermia, like two artificial gods, 

Have with our needles created both one flower, 

Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion, 

Both warbling of one song, both in one key,

As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds, 

Had been incorporate. So we grew together, 

Like to a double cherry—seeming parted

But yet an union in partition— 

Two lovely berries molded on one stem;

So, with two seeming bodies but one heart, 

Two of the first, like coats in heraldry, 

Due but to one and crownèd with one crest. 

And will you rent our ancient love asunder 

To join with men in scorning your poor friend?

It is not friendly, ’tis not maidenly. 

Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it, 

Though I alone do feel the injury.

Here Helena is talking about the bond of friendship that she and Hermia once shared and how Hermia is throwing it all away for a person she loves.  This love between two friends is like the one shared between Titania and the Indian Women.  In both cases, the friends have to put their friendship before their love for their partner.  Titania had to suffer the wrath of Oberon in order to preserve her promise to keep the Indian boy safe and Helena is asking Hermia to remember their bond while she walks away from her love, Demetrius. In both cases, the women are the ones who have a strong friendship and are the ones who are taking the hits for it.  What do you think about this?  Is friendship a more important part of a woman’s life than it is a man’s?

Act IV, Scenes I + 2

I am combining these two scenes together because my discussion applies to both.  When Bottom comes back to the troupe, he realizes that something incredible has happened, but he can’t remember what – it’s like a dream that he is trying to recall, but keeps slipping through his fingers.  This is like all of the lovers in Scene I – they can’t remember how they got into the woods or why they were there, but still some vague clues of what happened that night linger in their minds.  I would like to relate this back to my first post (again).  I posted a quote from Lysander talking about how true love faces all kinds of obstacles and it can disappear as quickly as a dream.  In this scene, everyone is waking up from a “dream” after losing their “true loves”.  So, in what ways was the foreshadow fulfilled throughout the play?  In what ways was it incorrect?  

Recap:

1. Why does Shakespeare use two completely different views within the same play? (Answer for fantasy/reality and incongruity of the actors)
2. What do you think about friendship suffering for love?  Is friendship a more important part of a woman’s life than it is a man’s?
3. In what ways was the foreshadowing in Lysander’s quote fulfilled throughout the play?  In what ways was it incorrect?  

That’s all for now!

Erin B