English 154/180
Harlan
PLOT SUMMARY FOR A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
I, 1: The ruler of ancient Athens, the hero of Greek mythology, Theseus, has defeated the Amazons, women warriors, and captured their queen, Hippolyta. He is impatient to marry his captive but must wait for the change of the moon in four days. He promises Hippolyta that their wedding will be a grand affair, and he orders his Master of Revels, Philostrate, to “stir up the Athenian youth to merriment,” including encouraging the performance of plays for the event.
Egeus, a nobleman of Athens, enters with a serious legal complaint. He has given permission to his friend Demetrius to marry his only daughter Hermia. However, the girl has willfully fallen in love with Lysander. He requests that Theseus give him permission to force her to marry Demetrius or to face execution under Athenian law. Theseus questions Hermia, asks her to obey her father and offers her a third alternative – to become a nun. She refuses to marry her father’s choice, and Lysander accuses Demetrius of having previously won the love of Helena. But Theseus proclaims that he has no choice – Hermia must marry Demetrius, and he orders Lysander and Hermia to part.
Lysander reminds Hermia that “the course of true love never did run smooth.” So many factors, such as age, class and death, serve to separate those who love. Lysander then proposes that they escape Athens and run off to his aunt’s home. Despite some misgivings, which Hermia expresses by reminding Lysander of how fickle men in love can be, she agrees to meet him in the woods outside of town the following night.
Demetrius’ spurned lover, Helena, now enters, complaining that she wishes she could look more like Hermia so that her former boyfriend would like her again. Hermia points out that she only offers him hatred, and to try and make Helena feel better, she tells her of her plan to elope. When Lysander and Hermia leave, Helena reflects on the irrational nature of love, symbolized in the figure of Eros, or Cupid, who is a thoughtless child who blindly shoots his arrows of love without regard to the feelings of the humans involved. Nevertheless, Helena decides to find Demetrius and tell him of Hermia’s escape so that he might think better of her.
I, 2: Elsewhere in Athens a group of workingmen has decided to stage a play for Theseus’ wedding in hopes of being rewarded. Peter Quince has written a play about the doomed love affair of Pyramus and Thisbe from Greek mythology. Calling his play “the most lamentable comedy,” Quince and his friends are out of their intellectual depth. He has asked a friend Nick Bottom, who has played in a number of amateur dramas, to play the lead character Pyramus. Although he assures everyone that he knows the play, Bottom has no idea that Pyramus is a young lover. He announces that his real strength is playing the part of loud, ranting tyrants. As Quince parcels out the other parts of the play, such as the female lead, Thisby, and the Lion who chases her away, Bottom pleads that he can play those parts as well. Fighting off Bottom’s attempts to take over the production completely, Quince finishes casting the play and arranges for the first rehearsal in the woods outside of town on the following night.
II, 1: The next night in the woods a fairy attendant who waits upon Titania, Queen of the Fairies, encounters Puck, a.k.a. Robin Goodfellow, the chief henchman of Oberon, King of the Fairies. She recognizes him, and he describes how he provides entertainment for Oberon by invisibly playing jokes on mortals. But Oberon and Titania are estranged, locked in a bitter custody battle over a little human child, called a changeling, who Titania is raising. The king and queen of the fairies enter and immediately begin quarreling, accusing each other of coming to the same place because of their passion for the human king or queen who are about to marry. Titania observes that their fighting has affected the natural world, causing the summer to be unnaturally rainy. When Oberon once again demands the changeling, Titania describes how the boy’s mother had belonged to her religious order in India and had been her special friend. The mother died in childbirth, and Titania intends to raise her son. She and her attendants angrily depart.
Oberon plots his revenge on his wife. He sends Puck off to find a special flower called love-in-idleness. The flower was created when Cupid shot a love shaft at a royal virgin (probably a reference to Queen Elizabeth) and missed. The juice of the flower, when placed on the eyelids of a sleeping people will make them fall in love with the first thing they see when they awake. He intends to put the juice on Titania’s eyes and then arrange for some monstrous being to awaken her.
While Puck is on his errand, Oberon, invisible to mortals, watches as Demetrius enters, pursued by the lovesick Helena. He is angry about Hermia’s elopement and about Helena’s relentless pursuit. No matter what he threatens her with, abandonment, even rape, she refuses to give him up. He runs off with Helena following. Oberon decides to help the poor girl, and when Puck returns, Oberon takes some of the magic flower and sends Puck off to find the girl and her disdainful ex-boyfriend. The only description he gives his servant is that the man is wearing the “weeds,” or clothes, of Athens. He orders Puck to wait until they are asleep and then to put the love potion in Demetrius’ eyes so that when he awakes he will fall in love with Helena again. Meanwhile Oberon goes off to find the bower where his wife is sleeping.
II, 2: At her bower Titania stations her attendants to sing her asleep and to protect her during the night. Oberon enters, puts the juice in her eyes and departs. Then Lysander and Hermia enter. They are lost in the woods, and Lysander proposes that they spend the night sleeping together, innocently, on the ground. Hermia objects that it would not be proper since they are not yet married and insists that he sleep at some distance from her. Puck enters, finds the couple dressed in Athenian garments physically separated, and naturally assumes that the man would let his ex get near him. He puts the juice in Lysander’s eyes and runs back to Oberon.
Helena enters, having lost Demetrius. She whines that she will never be as attractive as Hermia. Then she finds Lysander lying on the ground, apparently dead. When she awakens him, he immediately falls in love with her and almost as quickly declares that he must kill his rival Demetrius. When the disbelieving Helena reminds him that he is in love with Hermia, he bitterly denounces his now former girlfriend and declares that his “Reason says you are the worthier maid.” Convinced that he is playing a cruel joke on her, Helena runs off and he follows her, abandoning Hermia.
Hermia awakes from a nightmare where a snake was attacking her and finds Lysander gone. She goes off to find him or accept her own death.
III, 1: Now Peter Quince and his actors enter the same location and, using the bushes and open space as a makeshift theater, begin rehearsing. First they have to overcome some technical problems with the script. In the play Pyramus kills himself with a sword which they are sure will upset the audience. Bottom proposes that Quince add a prologue that will explain they are only play-acting, that no actors are actually injured in the production and that Pyramus is really Nick Bottom, a local weaver. The same solution of a spoken prologue is suggested for the next problem: a fierce lion that chases Pyramus’ girlfriend, Thisby, at one point. The actors fear that if Snug, a workman cast as the lion, is too realistic it will frighten the noble ladies in the audience and they could all end up being hanged. In addition to a spoken disclaimer, Bottom proposes that Snug’s costume reveal his face and that he name himself as well. The next problems arise because the actors assume the audience is as unimaginative as they are. The play takes place at night, and a central feature of the play is a large wall between Pyramus and Thisby’s homes. The only solution is for an actor to play the part of the moon and another to play the wall, appropriately costumed. With all the problems apparently settled, the rehearsal begins.
Puck enters and observes the “hempen homespuns” [yokels] in action. Bottom bellows his lines, getting some of the words right. He then goes offstage, into a thicket, followed by Puck. Quince has to work with Flute, the actor playing Thisby, because he speaks all his lines at once instead of waiting for his cues. Meanwhile Puck as a joke replaces Bottom’s head with a donkey’s head, unbeknownst to the ham actor.
When Bottom re-enters his changed appearance terrifies his colleagues who gasp that he has been “translated.” (They all have trouble with words of more than one syllable.) Unaware of his transformation, Bottom assumes that they are trying to frighten and “make an ass of him.” He has no idea how to get home, so he resolutely marches up and down singing about the birds of the forest to show his friends he is not afraid.
Naturally his singing awakens Titania, who immediately falls in love with this angel with the beautiful voice. When she declares her love for him, he warns her that she should have no reason to love him, even though “reason and love keep little company together nowadays.” She commands Bottom not to leave the woods and declares her intention to “purge his mortal grossness” and make him a spirit like herself. She presents her attendant fairies, Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth and Mustardseed, and Bottom tries to say something appropriate to each one, in the process demonstrating the utter incongruity of his being the object of Titania’s affections. She orders her fairies to tie up his tongue and bring him to her bower for a night of passion.
II, 2: Oberon wonders what awakened his wife. Puck enters and tells his master about the business with Bottom, much to Oberon’s delight. But now Hermia enters pursued by a lovesick Demetrius. He wants her love, and she demands to know what he has done with Lysander. Despite his blustering boast of feeding his rival’s body to his hounds, Demetrius confesses he has no idea where Lysander is. Hermia grows so angry, she stomps off in disgust. Demetrius in his discouragement lies down and sleeps.
Oberon realizes that Puck has put the love juice in the wrong person’s eyes and may have destroyed a true love. Puck dismisses the seriousness of the charge, pointing that most men break their oaths of love anyway. Oberon sends him off to find Helena and bring her to where Demetrius lies asleep, his eyes doused with the love juice. Puck returns with Helena, pursued by an ardent Lysander. Puck announces, “Now will two at once woo one….Lord, what fools these mortals be!”
Helena enters arguing with Lysander, who hopes his tears will convince her that he is serious in his vows of love. Demetrius awakens and promptly falls in love with her. Helena is now convinced there is a conspiracy to make fun of her unrequited love. The more the two men swear their love and threaten each other with death, the more Helena is convinced she is the butt of the joke. When Hermia enters seeking Lysander, Helena thinks she is part of the joke. Hermia asks Lysander why he left her, but she can’t understand his answer that he no longer loves her. Demetrius taunts Lysander and challenges him to a sword fight. Helena complains that she and Hermia have always been best friends and now her friend has betrayed her by ordering Demetrius to declare his love for her. When Lysander tries to leave to fight with Demetrius, Hermia won’t let go of him. He finally convinces her that he now hates her. Hermia immediately blames Helena for having stolen her love away, and they exchange angry words. When Helena calls her former friend a ”puppet” or doll, Hermia immediately concludes that Helena has used the difference in their statures (Hermia is shorter) to prevail with Lysander. Now Lysander joins in and insults Hermia’s shortness gratuitously to prove his love for Helena. The two men go off to fight, and Hermia tries to attack Helena, who runs away.
An angry Oberon orders Puck to round up the lovers and bring them together before morning. Puck imitates the voice of first Demetrius and then Lysander to lead the men around the woods until they drop exhausted back where they began and fall asleep. He then rounds out the couples by bringing Helena and Hermia in. He then douses the eyes of Lysander so that he will love Hermia again.
IV, 1: In her bower Titania cuddles the grotesque Bottom, who now sends the fairies on errands to bring him honey and to scratch his head, which, he senses, has suddenly grown hairy. When Titania asks what he wants to eat, Bottom has a strange desire for oats and hay. They fall asleep together. Oberon enters. Titania has given him the changeling boy, and he now pities her. When he puts an antidote in her eyes, Puck removes Bottom’s ass head. Oberon awakens Titania, and she realizes what has happened to her. She and Oberon reconcile with a dance and leave the sleeping Bottom behind.
Theseus, Hippolyta and Egeus enter with a hunting party to find the four lovers asleep on the ground. When awakened they seem disoriented and unsure about what happened to them. But they do know they are in love with the right person now. Theseus overrides Egeus’ objections and declares that all four will be married in the temple with him and Hippolyta. The lovers readily agree and return to Athens.
Bottom finally awakens. He thinks he is still in the rehearsal, waiting for his cue. Then he realizes he has been asleep and has had a marvelous dream. What exactly it was he is not sure, but he decides that he will get Quince to write a ballad about it so he can perform it at the end of the play. It will be called “’Bottom’s Dream,’ because it hath no bottom.” He leaves to go home.
IV, 2: Back in Athens at Quince’s house the actors are in despair over Bottom’s plight. They are convinced that they cannot perform without him and that if he had been able to go on the stage, Theseus would surely have rewarded them. Suddenly Bottom appears and with no explanation urges them to prepare to go on stage.
V, 1: Hippolyta is still intrigued by the strange account of the lovers, but Theseus dismisses it, declaring that lunatics, lovers and poets are all alike in their madness. To pass the time until night, Theseus orders Philostrate brings a list of plays that can be performed. He dismisses two as inappropriate and chooses the “tedious brief scene of young Pyramus and his love Thisby.” (The boys continue to have trouble with big words.) Despite Philostrate’s warning of extreme dumbness, Theseus says that the wedding party can accept the play in the spirit in which it is offered. Quince enters first and delivers a prologue to the play. Unfortunately he delivers his verse in such a way that he conveys exactly the opposite of what he intended – the play will insult the audience. Through the play the noble audience members mock the play and heckle the actors.
The actors are then presented: Bottom as Pyramus; Flute as Thisby; Snout as the Wall; Starveling as Moonshine; and Snug as the Lion. The story is outlined: Pyramus and Thisby fall in love, despite the wall between their feuding families; they agree to meet at Ninus’ tomb to run away; unfortunately Thisby gets there first, is spotted by a lion and chased away, but not before the Lion grabs her mantle; Pyramus enters and finds the Lion with the mantle, assumes Thisby is dead and kills himself; Thisby comes back, finds Pyramus and kills herself with the same sword.
The play begins with Pyramus and the Wall with a chink through which the lovers whisper. Bottom gives a full-throated reading of his part and then steps out of character to explain to the audience what is to happen next. Pyramus and Thisby exchange love vows, making up names of fictitious lovers from mythology as they go along. The Lion comes in very apologetically and cautions everyone not to be afraid. When Thisby enters the Lion chases her away and then mangles her mantle. When Moonshine enters the audience cannot be restrained, as they point out all the inconsistencies about the way the Moon is presented. In frustration Starveling forgets his lines. Pyramus enters, finds the mantle, grows philosophical about the place of lions in the universe and in despair over losing Thisby, kills himself with his sword, taking a long time to die (and to milk his big scene.) Thisby enters, finds Pyramus’ body, waxes philosophical about death and kills herself. Bottom offers the audience an epilogue or a dance. Theseus chooses the dance, for as he says, "When the players are all dead, there need be none to be blamed." The newly weds excuse themselves and leave, as do the actors.
When all the mortals have departed Oberon, Titania, Puck and all the fairies enter and perform a song and dance blessing all those in the house and ensuring that the offspring created there will be free from birth defects. Finally Puck delivers a final speech asking for forgiveness for any offense which the play might have given and encouraging the audience to clap.