Should Act V Have Gone The Route of "Die, die die, die, die"?

Should Act V Have Gone The Route of "Die, die die, die, die"?

Blog Post #1 By Morgan Smith

A question some Shakespeare scholars pose in response to A Midsummer Night's Dream Act V is, "Was that really necessary?". When we last left our couples and characters in Act IV, most of the problems that initiated this whimsical play were resolved; the youths were paired off with their rightful mates, Oberon and Titania's feud produced Oberon victor, Bottom restored, and Theseus and Hippolyta's wedding is underway.

Don't roll down the curtains just yet- there are a number of subtle and significant themes continued in Act V that are worth your observation.

Echoing the title, dreams play an importance throughout the play and Act V served as a cincher to this motif. Puck wrapped up the theme of dreams by heralding Hippolyta and Theseus' later conversation of the lovers' "dreams" with this Epilogue, 'If we shadows have offended,/Think but this, and all is mended;That you have but slumbered here." (895, Lines 1-4) At this point, many of the characters presume that the proceedings of the night before were merely reverie and Puck's address to the audience fashions the play into a whimsical dream the crowd has enjoyed.

But besides repeating pre-existing themes, Act V gave a unique and silent version of AMND's leading ladies, Hermia and Helena. For the first time, these otherwise opinionated women have nothing to say in Act V. The previously unstoppable Helena and outspoken Hermia who defied "the ancient privilege of Athens" (850) seem to have nothing to say now that they have acquired the objects of their affection. This change in character insinuates marriage as the ultimate social achievement for women in this society, while the males can expect to go on to other things (and provide commentary to crude plays).

Act V served as a vehicle to tie the loose ends of themes, such as gender. Hippolyta, the symbolically conquered Amazon queen, is finally married to Theseus in this Act preceded by the play the "rude mechanicals" so laboriously put together. Compared to where we saw them last stating their wishes to rise up from their blue-collar post, their production of 'Pyramus and Thisbe' does not live up to their expectations and they unknowingly suffer harsh critique from their audience, "Hard-handed men that work Athens here, Which never laboured in their minds till now", is what Egeus refers to the players as. They bumble through the tragic love story- which eerily echoed the plot of Romeo and Juliet, though I've heard forbidden romances that end with everyone dying is a classic story arc (Tristan and Isolde, anyone?).

At first I thought such a play was an odd choice to entertain wedding guests with, but the theme of hardships and love seemed to shadow the trials faced by everyone in the woods prior. This reflection in 'Pyramus and Thisbe' to me added to the dreamlike mystique of the Acts that took place in the forest.

Overall, I do not feel AMND would be the same without Act V to really nail all those motifs on the head once and for all.

I would also like to add the pleasure I took in Theseus' reaction to Bottom offering an epilogue or rustic bergamask dance at the conclusion of the play, "No epilogue, I pray you; for your play needs no excuse...Marry, if he that writ it had played Pyramus and hanged himself in Thisbe's garter it would have been a fine tragedy...But come, your bergamask. Let the epilogue alone." (893)

It made me laugh. That is the best and most disparaging rejection to a shabby play!

Lear's Daughters

I enjoyed the production of Lear’s Daughters. I didn’t think it was trying to be controversial simply for the sake of being controversial. I thought it was trying to respond to a play that has a lot of influence over all of Western literature, yet which has some questionable depictions/ characterizations of women. I didn’t really find anything shocking about the play. This might be because I recently finished a project about rape in the Congo, where women are getting gang raped and getting AK 47s shot into their vaginas and have to walk around with feces and urine pouring down their legs and are then shunned by their husbands and other villagers, but in comparison a character having an abortion in a play just doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. How do you respond to a play that has some misogynist tendencies when you live in a world where women are so undervalued that this kind of treatment is acceptable? It could be argued that “Shakespeare” has nothing to do with anything I’ve just said, but I think that “Shakespeare” is more than just a great writer. “Shakespeare” is an institution that can be used for homogenization, for legitimating the views of whoever (and by whoever I mean people who have traditionally been in power) it is that has decided that he is unquestionably the best. (After the play some people were saying that King Lear is not only the greatest literary production of the West, but of all humanity; does this not bother anybody else?) After all, “Shakespeare,” however great he is, is nonetheless from the point of view of an English male living in the 16th century, and therefore, no matter how “ahead of his time” he was, runs the risk of being both patriarchal and imperialist. I think Lear’s daughters, with all its screaming women and barely there Kings, is a good thing for “Shakespeare” in general because it keeps it from “weigh[ing] like a nightmare on the brains of the living” – it keeps it from being oppressive and from being irrelevant. I mean, if you are not an English major or interested in storytelling in any way, why would you read Shakespeare? And how is someone in South Africa supposed to view Henry V? Would they feel patriotic after listening to his heroic speeches? I think Lear’s Daughters and other plays of the same vein (like Paula Vogel’s Desdemona) make Shakespeare matter: they breathe life into material that can sometimes seem (to me, anyway) dated and wholly unconnected to my life. I also think that academics have a tendency to turn “Shakespeare” into some kind of metanarrative on par with Christianity, and I like that the play challenges that authority.