There were many things I found perplexing in the first acts of A Midsummer Night's Dream. I haven't seen the play performed in a while, but as I started reading I was expecting something very light. So when Egeus starts begging for the "ancient privelege of Athens", I wasn't sure how seriously I should be taking it. This situation, I suppose, is appropriate for the setting of the play, but at the same time I couldn't really factor it into what my understanding of the play as a whole. Egeus says that Lysander has "bewitched" Hermia into loving him and thus disobeying Egeus' order that she marry Demetrius (I.i.21-38). But what I don't understand is that if Egeus blames Lysander for brainwashing Hermia, why doesn't he beg that Lysander be punished? Then, later, when Lysander accuses Demetrius of having made love to Helena and then leaving her, Theseus says he had heard about this but quickly forgot about it ("but being over-full of self affairs, my mind did lose it"- I.i.111-113). Why is Demetrius not held accountable for his actions and why is Egeus so casual about something that could mean life or death for Hermia? This interaction seems to set up the gender hierarchy within the play, at least for the human characters.
The relationship between Titania and Oberon suggests that division of power is not so clean cut in the faery kingdom. Titania and Oberon's first interaction in the play displays a definite power struggle in which neither party seems to hold much power over the other. That Titania denies Oberon the changeling boy "perforce" shows that she has power and can exert that power in spite of her husband (II.i.26). Also, Titania's assertion that she must keep the boy to honor the relationship that she had with his mother shows that Titania values her friendship just as much or more than her relationship with her husband, displaying her autonomy. Oberon's mischief with the love potion is a way to undermine the autonomy that Titania displays, and perhaps to assert a patriarchal power dynamic.
2 comments:
I thought the same thing while I was reading the play. The women are always punished while the men are left to go forth and do it all over again to another woman or they get forced into marrying someone else. I think this is just how things worked in those days so to the audience it was what they expected to happen. This definitely something we all have to keep in mind when reading literature from other time periods since we might be inclined to judge them on our present day standards.
I agree with both your sentiments about the way that women are treated. However, Shakespeare is just representing what society is and was during his time. Women were ultimately seen as property. Similar to any form of property you must invest in it and make sure that it is properly given the right conditioning in order to get more of a profit. Hermia's father, Egeus does just that, he uses Hermia like property. But what I think that Shakespeare gives women at least some form of a fighting chance. He makes them outspoken such as when Hermia is able to speak for herself, he makes women mischief as a man such as Titania and he makes them want and desire like a man such as Helena. I still think that it is cruel how women are treated, but Shakespeare gives them a chance that by our standard is what a women should do, which is follow her own destiny, consequences be damned.
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