PLOT, THEMES & MOTIFS IN A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

PLOT

SETTINGS

Athens

(Chaos controlled by law)

Forest

(Lovers quarrel & fairy mischief)

LOVE

The play focuses on

the difficulties of love.

It shows how the heart

can be broken, but it

can also be repaired.

Love is a state that is

often out of balance in

this play. Is

Shakespeare satirising

love in this play?

ACTSAct 1: In Athens, Theseus prepares for his wedding to Hippolyta, Egeus states Hermia

must marry Demetrius (not Lysander her lover), Hermia and Lysander run off together.

Act 2: Lysander and Titania are affected by Puck’s love juice, Lysander falls in love

with Helena.

Act 3: Puck turns Bottom’s head into a donkey’s and Titania falls in love with Bottom,

Oberon causes Demetrius to love Helena, Hermia fights with Helena because she thinks

she betrayed her, Oberon tells Puck to correct the situation.

Act 4: The young lovers awaken in love with their true loves, Demtrius tells his father

he wants to marry Helena and Bottom gets his real head back.

Act 5: Lots of weddings: Theseus & Hippolyta, Lysander & Hermia, Demetrius &

Helena, Bottom and the mechanics perform their play, Oberon and Titania bless the

marriages.

THEMES

Love and marriage

Order and disorder

Appearance and reality

Imagination

LOVE & MARRIAGE

“The course of true love never did run smooth.” -

Lysander

Specific scenes to review:

Act 1 Scene 1

Act 2 Scene 1

Act 3 Scene 2

Act 4 Scene 1

Act 5 Scene 1

LOVE QUOTES

“The course of true love never did run smooth” –

Lysander I, 1

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind.

And therefore is wing’dCupid painted blind”

–Helena I, 1

ORDER & DISORDER

Act 1 Scene 1

Act 2 Scene 1

Act 3 Scene 1

Act 3 Scene 2

Act 4 Scene 1

Act 5 Scene 1

APPEARANCE & REALITY

Things are often not as they seem.

Scenes:

Act 3 Scene 1

Act 3 Scene 2

Act 4 Scene 1

Act 5 Scene 1

IMAGINATION

The unconscious, the magical, the mysterious. 

Scenes:

Act 4 Scene 1

Act 5 Scene 1

MOTIFS

A motif is an object (symbol) or idea (theme) that repeats

itself throughout the text. Recurring imagery or elements.

Nature

Moon

Sleep/dreams

Eyes

Plays/roles

Magic

NATURE

The magical world of the forest contrasts with

Theseus's court. It is disrupted by the disharmony

between the fairy king and queen. 

THE MOON

The Moon symbolises change, disruption and unpredictability, romance,

and the magical.

'Therefore the moon, the governess of floods, / Pale in her anger, washes all

the air...' 

Act 2 Scene 2

'We the globe can compass soon, / Swifter than the wandering moon' 

Act 4 Scene 1

'Now the hungry lion roars, / And the wolf behowls the moon' 

Act 5 Scene 1

SLEEP & DREAMS

When we sleep and dream we are transported to mysterious places, and we are in a state of

innocence and vulnerability. Sometimes boundaries between fantasy and reality are blurred. The

dreaming relates to love; it is also confusing. The inclusion of dreams makes the love a more

lighthearted element rather than a tragic element that focuses too significantly on emotions.

'Ay me, for pity! what a dream was here!' 

Act 2 Scene 2

'It seems to me / That yet we sleep, we dream' 

Act 4 Scene 1

'God's my life, stolen hence, and left me asleep! I have had a most rare vision. I have had a

dream...' 

Act 4 Scene 1

'Why, then, we are awake: let's follow him / And by the way let us recount our dreams' 

Act 4 Scene 1

PLAYS & ROLES

symbols of magical transformation and of

experimentation

MAGIC

The unseen, the unpredictable and that which

can’t be explained.

 

 

EYES

Eyes are the windows to the soul, a gateway to the heart

'Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind' 

Act 1 Scene 1

'Reason becomes the marshal to my will / And leads me to your eyes, where I o'erlook / Love's stories

written in love's richest book' 

Act 2 Scene 2

'And then I will her charmed eye release / From monster's view, and all things shall be peace' 

Act 3 Scene 2

'Methinks I see these things with parted eye, / When every thing seems double' 

Act 4 Scene 1

'The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, / Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven...' 

Act5 Scene 1