Stereotypes In A Midsummer Night's Dream By William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare demonstrates greater pain for women than men. It shows male ownership of women, broken friendships over men, women outsmarted by men and women conquered by men. A Midsummer Night’s Dream reveals truths about the abuse women received during the the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

All throughout Illyria, there is romance, passion, royalty, and an immense amount of gender stereotypes. William Shakespeare imagines the kingdom of Illyria to have very traditional norms for both women and men in his play Twelfth Night. In Scene 2 of Act 1, Viola, recently rescued from a shipwreck, hears about a duke named Orsino and instantly comes up with a plan to get closer to him. Her plan is to disguise herself as a boy who she will name Cesario and become one of Orsino's’ attendants. Right off the bat, we begin to see gender stereotypes. Why must Viola become a man in order to work for the duke? Elizabethan society “molded women into the form of the dutiful wife and mother” (Elizabethan Women). Viola could not have served duke Orsino as a woman because as a woman she was expected to work at home and be either a “dutiful wife [or a] mother”. Scene two prepares the audience for the idea of gender throughout the rest of the play. Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is very traditional play due to its ideas of gender stereotypes in Elizabethan society.

More often than not, men are presumed to be more foolish than women. However, in the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, this stereotype is defined, as the girls are more foolish due to their curiosity and ambition for love. Throughout this Shakespearean play, women show that they act more foolishly because they fall in, run away and chase after love. Hermia, Helena, and Titania are all examples of the foolish effects love have on women.

Exerting the type of power that is influenced by malicious intentions can cause one to make decisions that are not beneficial to others. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is written within a time period and setting that favors men instead of woman. In other words, men have all the authority to control the events that occur in their own lives as well as the lives of others whom are considered insignificant. The plot displays the catalysts that ignite many characters’ desire for control that is misused by higher status people. Shakespeare’s use of characterization demonstrates how the wanting of control causes the characters to act irrationally through the misuse of power. Shakespeare’s use of setting, plot and characterization causes the ordeals

The 1500’s were a turbulent time for women. Throughout history, women were perceived as second-class citizens to men, and that the man dominates society. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare adds to this by creating female characters that further cement stereotypes. Even though Shakespeare creates emphasis on the stereotypes of females, he stresses the bond of womanhood. This bond is broken as soon as men and love come into the picture. The most important female characters in the play are Hippolyta, Titania, Hermia, and Helena. They started out as strong role models and “evened out” over the course of the play. William Shakespeare and A Midsummer Night’s Dream highlights patriarchal thinking and how female bonds can be broken,

We as American people have the ability to pick and chose want we want to do with our lives. For example we get to chose what we want to believe in, what we want to be, where we will go, and who we will marry. Something that is hard for people to comprehend now is you weren’t always given these choices. Even though we now are able to chose how we live our lives now, one thing that has not changed are gender stereotypes and the roles that genders are expected to play in our society today. Shakespeare touched on a lot of these ideas in his play Much Ado About Nothing. The soldiers in this play come to the city, Messina, after they have finished fighting in a war. Instead of all of the soldiers having sex and partying, one of the soldiers falls in love, and wants to marry. The play talks about the ongoing struggle between the main characters, Benedick and Claudio, and the contradicting views on whether to marry or stay a bachelor which plagues society today.

Women in today’s society feel as if they are given less power than a man and are fighting back for their rights. In his comedic romance novel, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare portrays women as the weakest of the sexes. Throughout the tale, Shakespeare makes it a societal normal to treat women in this manner, which in old times, was accepted. Women in the story even see themselves as weaker than men and accept they are below them. Shakespeare’s conflict, imagery, and symbolism sets the stage for how the sexes are portrayed in this novel full of comedic irony.

Here is my answer to A Midsummer Night’s Dream question number 3: How do genders effect the roles of the characters in A Midsummer Night’s Dream?

In the play ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ written by William Shakespeare, an important event is when Egeus goes to Duke Theseus to force his daughter, Hermia, to marry a man whom she does not love, Demetrius. This event helps readers understand the idea of expectations of women during the patriarchal society.

This theatrical performance was centered around two pairs of paramours. Preeminent among playwrights, Shakespeare wrote several of his dramas on the theme of love. One of the most famous of these passionate stories is A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as it deals with romance in a variety of fashions. In truth, the theme of romance in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream illustrates that love is blind, young love is hasty, and that love is never without challenges.

Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare is a story about the patriarchal relationships between the two chracters and it explains how men use their authority on the women because they think themselves are superior to women. In Midsummer Night’s Dream has Patriarchal laws. The relationship between king and queen of fairies is not good and it is not like any two married wife and husband, and like that the relationship between Hermia and her father (Agues) is very ugly because her father is very strict with her and he wants to dominate her life. This essay clarifies how Shakespeare explores the unequal relationships between King and the Queen of the fairies, and between Hermia and Agues to show that there is ‘a patriarchal’ men controlled the lives of women.

In William Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” there are various literary devices displayed throughout the play, in particular Act 2 Scene 1. Many pictures, quotes and short descriptions are able to depict these attributes and are displayed within the collage.

It is often argued that adaptions do not fare with the worth of an original work of writing. Specifically, film remakes of classic pieces of literature are rarely received with accepting minds. Why is that? As connoisseurs of English, we tend to feel remakes or a creative spin on a classic could never live up to the original. In some respects this is very true, but remakes are important in keeping works of art and literature current and adaptable for any time period; especially in today’s growing millennial age. Take for instance film adaptions of books, poetry, and plays. Film breathes life into the complacent and one-dimensional words on page. It opens the floodgates of imagery and gives viewers visual substance. While writing will always be the standard for story and communication, filmmaking is a true visual art. Bashing remakes of treasured pieces of literature is no different than scoffing at Shakespeare’s plays for the aged language. Film adaptions have added dimension to the world of English, as well as disseminate the morals and motifs of these stories for our digital age in a relevant way.

In William Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream" many symbols, imagery, allusions and dramatic irony are portrayed throughout the play. The collage helped to showcase the major idea's and connections to the play with the use of the dramatic elements.

While evaluating the history of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, it is apparent that an exact date, time, or stage design has been identified for this particular Shakespearean masterpiece. It is believed by some scholars that William Shakespeare wrote this play with a wedding in mind, while other’s will argue that the final script wasn’t performed for anyone in particular, but rather for the general public in an amphitheater setting. According to the time period that A Midsummer Night’s Dream was made public, it is a large possibility that it was not performed in London, and that it was most definitely not performed as a small production in an Inn-yard, or even an indoor playhouse.