A Midsummer Night's Dream: Script Analysis 

Title of the Play and Playwright:

The title of the play is “A Midsummer Night's Dream” and the play was written by William Shakespeare back in 1596.

Significance of the Plays name or Title:

When you first read the play's title it has social meanings and literal meanings. The title “ A Midsummer Night's Dream” lets the reader know that the play is about a midnight dream during the middle of the summer. That’s what’s so significant about the play's title.

The genre of the Play:

The Genre of the play “A Midsummer Night's Dream” is comedy. It is a comedy because of the obstacles it faces in the script that would be common in a Shakespeare comedy. Misdirected love would be the first and the parental disapproval due to the love for one another. This play is a comedy because it doesn’t focus on the emotions of the characters but focuses more on the situations the characters are put in. For example, Hermia is in love with Lysander even though she is in love with Lysander Hermia's father Egeus wants her to marry Demetrius. This puts her in sort of a blind because now if she disobeys her father Egeus she will be exiled and then could even be sentenced to death. To add Helena loves Demetrius but Demetrius loves Hermia, but everything goes left when both Lysander and Demetrius start to fall in love with Helena.

Physical Settings of the play:

There are two different areas for the physical settings of this play. One area that was used in the beginning of the play and the end of the play was the court and city of Athens in ancient Greece. The second setting comes from the middle of the play in a forest area nearby. The time period of this play would have to be back in 1595 and 1596.

The plot of the Play:

In the plot of the play, the duke of Athens is going to get married to Hippolyta, she is the queen of the Amazons. But before the marriage, there is a four-day event planned full of festivities. During the four days Egeus an Athenian nobleman who marches to the court of Theseus with his daughter Hermia so she can marry Demetrius. But Hermia is currently in love with Lysander. Hermia can not disobey her father Egeus because she can be exiled or even sentenced to death if she doesn’t marry Demetrius. Hermia does not have much time to decide who she is going to marry. She has until the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta to decide if she is going to respect her father Egeus's wishes and marry Demetrius or she is going to marry Lysander the man she loves and face the consequences that may come along with it. Hermia and Lysander come up with a plan to escape her father Egeus and run away to Lysander aunts house who lives in a very distant city of Athens and their going to marry each other there. Hermina tells her friend Helena who happens to be the ex-fiancé of Demetrius. Hermia tells Demetrius with hopes that she falls in love with her again. When the time was right for Lysander and Hermina to escape Demetrius runs into the woods after them with hopes to find them. Theseus and Hippolyta then discover that they are all in the forest. Theseus and Hippolyta then brings them back to the city. Puck then makes everything right and now Lysander is back in love with Hermina and Demetrius is now in love with Helena. Next, they both get married and are watching the Athenian craftsman perform the play. The play they perform is a comedy and is very funny. Puck then apologizes to everyone for everything that has happened and wants everyone to think of it as a dream.

Characters of the play:

Hippolyta: She is the queen of the Amazons and she represents the order in the story.

Theseus: He is the duke of Athens. He also represents order and power. He represents power because everything goes through him.

Egeus: Egeus is a brief character, he wants his daughter Hermina to marry a man she is not in love with. But he believes she had to respect his wishes.

Helena: Helena is in love with Demetrius and she is confident about herself and wants Demetrius to fall in love with her again and he eventually does.

Hermina: Hermina is in love with Lysander. But her father wants her to marry Demetrius and she can’t disobey her father because she’ll be exiled so she runs always with Lysander.

Demetrius: Demetrius is a young man from Athens who loves Hermina first then he falls back in love with Helena again.

Lysander: He is a young man from Athens he loves Hermina can not marry her because her father wants her to marry Demetrius and that’s preventing them from becoming married.

Oberon: Oberon is the king of fairies he caused a lot of confusion and mixed up in the play when he sent Puck to get the love potion.

Puck: Oberon's servant, he likes to play pranks on people. Puck is a protagonist because when everything went wrong he tries to fix it.

The protagonist in the story is Puck, Lysander, and Hermina. Puck because he tries to fix everything after he messed it up. Lysander and Hermina are also protagonists because all they want is love and to be together.

The antagonist is Egeus because he is selfish and only wants what he wants. He doesn't care about anyone’s opinion and won’t take no for an answer. He wants his daughter to marry who he chooses and not who she is truly in love with.

Playwright craft:

I truly think the main theme of the play is true love always prevails. I think this because it’s trying to teach a lesson that you should love who you want with confidence and love can’t be forced upon someone, it has to be true.

Historical Context:

The play “ A Midsummer Night’s Dream” was written in 1595. This play is relevant to the time period. I personally think it would be a cool and funny play to watch. Also, the SCF cast would do a really good job remaking this play.

This was a funny play to read and I think it would be cool to see it live and actually see what someone else would have in mind.