Shakespear, Teenagers and Hormonal Fairies

Fairies are planning mischief. They are going to play tricks on the emotions of the kids we are introduced to at the beginning of “A Mid Summer’s Night Dream”, and we know, as the audience, that things aren’t going to go to plan. Of course, that’s what fairies do. They play tricks on us humans. Just think of all those fantasy novels where they kidnap human children and replace them with changelings, which are fairy children they put in place of human ones. It’s like the fairies represent the hormones of the teenagers, well, I assume they are teenagers; we are introduced to in the opening of the play. Theseus, Hippolyta and Philostre are introduced, and they are already talking of whom they are getting with. “Therefore, fair Hermia, questions your desires know of your youth, examine well your blood, whether, if you yield not to your choice, you can endure the lively of a nun, for aye to be in sady cloister mewed, to live a barren sister all your life”, says Theseus to Hermia, and Hermia is offered the choice that all teenagers are offered. She can either rebel or go after boys in the comedy that will follow or become a nun or follow her father’s choice. Of course, things will get messy because of her hormones. The hormones are represented by the fairies that plan on messing with the kids in the woods. How curious that the fairies are going to use a magical juice to make the kids fall in love with the first things they see upon walking. “So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason. And touching now the point of human skill, reason becomes the marshal to my will, and leads me to your eyes, where I o’relook love’s stories written in love’s richest book”, says Lysander, who is loved by Hermia. Youth and love will be a central theme in Shakespeare’s play. The fact that things will get so complicated as the fairies start to play tricks on the kids shows that things are sure to be much like a hormone driven teenage comedy slash drama. “Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair? Or rather do I not in plainest truth tell you I do not nor I cannot you?” to which Helena says back “And even for that do I love you the more.” That’s simple young love. Shakespeare shows that young love existed even that many years ago. Those difficult teenage years will be shown throughout A Midsummer’s Dream, much like the teenage movies of today. The problem is that they will fall in love with each other, and all the teenagers will get mixed up with each other. Does it help that supernatural forces are at work as fairies play around with the hormones of the kids in the woods? Of course, that’s why we still read Shakespeare. His tales of young love still ring a bell in the popular ear of today’s stories.