Act IV Artistic Rendering

This picture of a dreaming girl is significant to the play from a couple different perspectives. What goes on in our subconscious when we are dreaming or day dreaming is based off of what has happened during our day or recently when we were conscience. Dreams are said to be a way to replay for us what happened in consciousness, but often times they have an unrealness to them. Most of the time, we don't even remember what we dream of, but when we do, it tends to be something that sticks with you, if not forever, then for quite a while. This is similar to A Midsummer Night's Dream because in the play, all the characters who get the love-juice placed on their eyes are magically transformed, not only in their affections, but also in their mannerisms. When they wake up after having the antidote placed on their eyes, they think of their actions as nothing but a dream. Titania remembered her actions with Bottom, but Lysander and Demetrius's memories were slightly clouded when it came to what happened in the woods after the love-juice was placed on their eyes. This is just an example of how the effects of dreams work on different people.

Act IV Real Life Connections

1. The movie Sleeping Beauty is similar to A Midsummer Night's Dream. This is because in the movie, the fairies make everyone in the castle fall asleep until the princess waskes up. When they finally do wake up, everyone thinks that everything that had previously happened was just a dream. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, when Titania wakes up, she believes she had a frightful dream in which she loved an ass, and immediately takes to Oberon in a way that the reader and audience never saw of her do earlier in the play.

2. The song "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" is significant to A Midsummer Night's Dream. This is because this song is used to congratulate someone for something they have done. Once Bottom returns, the rude mechanicals that he is acting alongside are overjoyed to see him, for the time they previusly saw him, he had the head of an ass, so they probably assumed that a beast overtook him, but he conquered it.

Act IV Quotes

1. "My Oberon! What visions have I seen! / Methought I was enamored of an ass!" -Titania to Oberon (Scene 1, lines 75-76)
This quote is significant because it shows the readers how when the victims of the love-juice wake up, they believe it all to have been a dream and can't believe what they went through.

2. "May all to Athens back again repair / And think no more of this night's accidents / But as the fierce vexation of a dream." -Oberon (Scene 1, lines 66-68)
This quote is especially significant to the play. This quote explains to the readers or audience why the victims feel as though they have had a most peculiar dream when they wake up after having the love-juice put on their eyes.

Act IV Vocab

1. discourse: n. conversation (Scene 1,line 182)
The Bush Administration was in discourse with the public over it's Iraq strategy.

2. enmity: n. hostility (Scene 1,line 151)
The enmity in his eyes was so great, I thought I could die just from looking at him.

3. paragon: n. model of perfection (Scene 2,line 13)
She was a paragon for the painting he had always dreamed of making.

4. amiable: adj. lovable, lovely (Scene 1, line 2)
She brown hair and rosy cheeks looked amiable in the snow covered forest.

5. upbraid: to reprimand somebody (Scene 1, line 49)
The principal upbraided the boys for leaving school property during school hours without permission

Act IV Questions

1. How does Theseus's current decision regarding Hermia and Lysander contradict his earlier statement?
In the beginning, Theseus told Hermia that if she did not do as her father wished and marry Demetrius, she would be forced to live forever at a nunnery, or face death. After hearing Lysander and Demetrius's stories and seeing that Demetrius truly did not love Hermia anymore, having eyes only for Helena, Theseus decided that their story was legitimate and decided that the couples could be married to their respective lovers with him and Hippolyta on their wedding day. Theseus probably thought, "Why hold love apart?", him himself having captured the woman he fell in love with so that they could be together forever.
2. How do most of the dreamers respond to the dream experience upon waking? Which character is changed permanently by the dream experience?
Most of the dreamers respond to the dream experience upon waking up similarily. They all believe that they have just had a dream in which everything they had previously went through when the love-juice was involved was just a wild and exciting dream. Demetrius is the only charcater who was permanently changed by the dream experience- he loved Hermia, but thanks to the love-juice, he now loves Helena forevermore.
3. In this act, several characters look back at prior infatuations with disbelief. What do you think Shakespeare is saying about love and infatuation?
I believe that Shakespeare is trying to demonstrate for the audience/reader how love functions. There is no 'way' of love and it is impossible to understand. It is something that will always be one of the biggest and unsolved mysteries of mankind. In this play, Shakespeare demonstrates that love can change at a blink of an eye with no reason at all expect that the infatuation of the person had changed.
4. The fourth act opens and ends with Bottom at center stage. What is your opinion of Bottom's character? How might he be antithesis, or opposite, of Theseus's character?
Bottom is a character you love to hate. The audience/reader loves to see and read his arrogance and confidence, but hates his arrogance and confidence all the same. Bottom is antithesis of Theseus's character because he always puts himself first and he believes that he is on level with the gods. Also, tells everyone that he is the best actor of the actors assembled, though it is true, he should not need to advertise it, and in doing so, he is also percieved as conceited. The difference with Theseus is that he knows he is a god and doesn't need to advertise it to evveryone.
5. Should the rude mechanicals putting on the play be happy that Nick Bottom has returned or not?
The rude mechanicals putting on the play should not be overjoyed that Bottom has returned. This is because Bottom is cocky and lets everyone know how good he is at everything and eventually it gets old and tiring. Also, Bottom may be the best of the actors assembled to put the play on, however, he is overly dramatic and seems very asinine and if the actors want to win the competition they should keep Bottom out of it.

Act IV Scenes I and II

After Class Review

I feel like Oberon and Titania's relationship is not trustful AT ALL. I like the fact that when they all wake-up, they think it to be nothing more thatn a dream, playing off the drama's title. Bottom really is annoying and tries much too hard to be liked by Titania. It seems though, that when Titania wakes up with the antidote having been put on her eyes, her and Oberon seem to share a new fondness for each other. When Theseus finds Hermia, Helena, Lysander, and Demetrius he is surprised that they are all civil and how Lysander and Demetrius's situation played out. He surprisingly accepts it and wants them to get married with him and Hippolyta.

Act III Artistic Rendering

This image is significant to A Midsummer Night's Dream in a few different ways. This can be significant because Demetrius loves Hermia, and Egeus wants Hermia to marry Demetrius, but Hermia does not want to take him as her husband. It could also be significant because, after the love juice is placed on his eyes, Lysander wakes up to see Helena first and immediately loves her, and she does not love him back. Hermia is heart broken to realize this and immediately thinks Helena stole her love from her.