“What a dream was here! […] Methought a serpent ate my heart away and you sat smiling at his cruel prey” (2.2:151-154). Hermia wakes up from a horrible nightmare; a snake devoured her heart while Lysander sat there smiling. This dream follows Lysander’s abandoning of Hermia, to pursue Helena, having had his eyes anointed by Puck. Hermia’s dream indicates that the phantasmal can affect, or in this case, reflect reality[1]. This dream can be interpreted as phallic, representing Hermia’s fear of sex[2]. However, the serpent is also an archetypal symbol of treachery, so, the dream may in fact reflect Lysander’s betrayal. The snake devoured Hermia’s heart, a symbol for love, just like Lysander broke her heart when he chose Helena. The dream precedes Hermia’s realization of Lysander’s betrayal and serves as a kind of foreshadowing, indicating that the second interpretation better fits the play as an exploration of the power of dreams, which can predict or even shape reality.
As the play progresses, characters start confusing reality and dreams, giving the theme of dreams even greater significance for the play. “I have had a most rare vision” (4.1.204), says Bottom and classifies his experience in the woods as a vision, a word associated with sight. However, in his description of this “vision”, Bottom mixes up the senses, hearing with seeing, touching with tasting, and produces a tangled meaning. Therefore, he cannot trust his senses to understand reality. Interestingly, Titania calls her experience with Bottom a vision as well: “What visions have I seen” (4.1.74).
“I have had a dream past the wit of man to say what dream it was” (4.1.205). Bottom then calls it a dream, perhaps more suitable, since dreams are more random and harder to understand, and talks about his lack of linguistic means to describe the amazing events he saw. Bottom cannot put his experience into words, but the very act of admitting his inability to use words produces the same effect; reality has no inherent meaning in itself, but rather language is the one that gives it meaning. His dream is bottomless because it can have endless interpretations or no meaning at all. However, his endeavours to describe the dream are bound to fail anyway; what he saw was real, making the dream within the play more real than his reality.
“[…] And think of this night’s accidents but as the fierce fixation of a dream” (4.1.66-67). Oberon reveals to Puck that Titania and the lovers, upon awakening, will think of the night’s events as merely dreams. Indeed the lovers are convinced that they are awake, “then, we are awake” (4.1.194) and that their peculiar adventures in the woods were dreams: “and by the way let us recount our dreams” (4.1.199). In his apologia, Puck invites the audience to do the same, think of the play that is, as merely a dream: “And this weak and idle theme no more yielding but a dream” (5.1.415-416). However, it is the reality of these “dreams” that restored order in Athens and revealed hidden aspects of the lovers. The play thus mixes and reverses reality and illusion, sleeping and dreaming. Dreams acquire a transformative power and become more real than reality.
As the play progresses, characters start confusing reality and dreams, giving the theme of dreams even greater significance for the play. “I have had a most rare vision” (4.1.204), says Bottom and classifies his experience in the woods as a vision, a word associated with sight. However, in his description of this “vision”, Bottom mixes up the senses, hearing with seeing, touching with tasting, and produces a tangled meaning. Therefore, he cannot trust his senses to understand reality. Interestingly, Titania calls her experience with Bottom a vision as well: “What visions have I seen” (4.1.74).
“I have had a dream past the wit of man to say what dream it was” (4.1.205). Bottom then calls it a dream, perhaps more suitable, since dreams are more random and harder to understand, and talks about his lack of linguistic means to describe the amazing events he saw. Bottom cannot put his experience into words, but the very act of admitting his inability to use words produces the same effect; reality has no inherent meaning in itself, but rather language is the one that gives it meaning. His dream is bottomless because it can have endless interpretations or no meaning at all. However, his endeavours to describe the dream are bound to fail anyway; what he saw was real, making the dream within the play more real than his reality.
“[…] And think of this night’s accidents but as the fierce fixation of a dream” (4.1.66-67). Oberon reveals to Puck that Titania and the lovers, upon awakening, will think of the night’s events as merely dreams. Indeed the lovers are convinced that they are awake, “then, we are awake” (4.1.194) and that their peculiar adventures in the woods were dreams: “and by the way let us recount our dreams” (4.1.199). In his apologia, Puck invites the audience to do the same, think of the play that is, as merely a dream: “And this weak and idle theme no more yielding but a dream” (5.1.415-416). However, it is the reality of these “dreams” that restored order in Athens and revealed hidden aspects of the lovers. The play thus mixes and reverses reality and illusion, sleeping and dreaming. Dreams acquire a transformative power and become more real than reality.
[1] (Moffatt, 2004)
[2] (Hutson, 2016)
Bibliography
Hutson, L. (2016). The Shakespearean unscene: Sexual phantasies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Journal of the British Academy, pp. 4, 169–195.
Moffatt, L. (2004). The woods as heterotopia in a Midsummer Night's Dream. Studia Neophilologica, pp. 76:2, 182-187.
Comments
Post a Comment