First, find textual evidence in the introductions and plays and draft your answers to the questions in the prompt.
Next, craft a thesis statement based on your analysis.
Then, begin writing your paper, presenting your thesis in the first paragraph, and then supporting it in subsequent paragraphs with
the ideas that you drafted in step one.
Include information from at least one of the introductions in The Norton Shakespeare that supports your analysis.
(The Norton Shakespeare book: https://digital.wwnorton.com/shakespeare3)
(login ID: viso4661@colorado.edu, password: Zhonghua-2010)
Choose ONE OF THE FOLLOWING prompts:
Prompt 1.
In Act 2, when Titania and Oberon meet in the woods, they argue over the human child. In the following passage, Titania explains why
she insists on keeping the boy:
TITANIA
Set your heart at rest:
The fairy land buys not the child of me.
His mother was a vot’ress of my order:
And, in the spiced Indian air, by night,
Full often hath she gossiped by my side,
And sat with me on Neptune’s yellow sands,
Marking th’embarked traders on the flood,
When we have laughed to see the sails conceive
And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind,
Which she with pretty and with swimming gait
Following, her womb then rich with my young squire,
Would imitate, and sail upon the land
To fetch me trifles, and return again
As from a voyage, rich with merchandise.
But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;
And for her sake do I rear up her boy,
And for her sake I will not part with him. (2.1.121-137)
According to the Fairy Queen, why does she wish to keep this boy? Who was the boy’s mother and what happened to her? Review the rest
of the scene in which this passage appears, including the footnotes. Why does Oberon want this child? Describe what Oberon decides to
do; what is your impression of Oberon and Titania? How does their conflict get resolved by the end of the play? Explain how this
subplot about the human child illuminates one of the main themes in the play.
Prompt 2.
Oberon describes the creation of the love potion in the following passage:
That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,
Flying between the cold moon and the earth
Cupid, all armed. A certain aim he took
At a fair vestal thronéd by the west,
And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts.
But I might see young Cupid’s fiery shaft
Quench’d in the chaste beams of the wat’ry moon,
And the imperial vot’ress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell.
It fell upon a little western flower—
Before, milk-white; now, purple with love’s wound—
And maidens call it love-in-idleness.
Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew’d thee once.
The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid
Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.
Fetch me this herb, and be thou here again
Ere the leviathan can swim a league. (2.1.155-174)
According to Oberon’s tale, how was the love potion created? Who was the “imperial vot’ress” that Cupid missed? Why did the arrow
miss its target? How does this potion get used, and misused, in the play? What problems does it cause? How are these problems solved?
What problems does it solve? How can you connect the story of the love potion to major themes in this play?
Prompt 3.
In Act 3, scene 2, Helena is offended by both Lysander and Demetrius’s vows of love, which she interprets as taunts. When Hermia
enters the scene, Helena turns her full wrath on her old friend:
Lo, she is one of this confederacy!
Now I perceive they have conjoin’d all three
To fashion this false sport, in spite of me.
Injurious Hermia! most ungrateful maid!
Have you conspired, have you with these contrived
To bait me with this foul derision?
Is all the counsel that we two have shared,
The sisters’ vows, the hours that we have spent,
When we have chid the hasty-footed time
For parting us,–O, is it all forgot?
All school-days’ friendship, childhood innocence?
We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,
Have with our needles created both one flower,
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
Both warbling of one song, both in one key,
As if our hands, our sides, voices and minds,
Had been incorporate. So we grow together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
But yet an union in partition;
Two lovely berries moulded on one stem;
So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart;
Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,
Due but to one and crowned with one crest.
And will you rent our ancient love asunder,
To join with men in scorning your poor friend?
It is not friendly, ’tis not maidenly:
Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it,
Though I alone do feel the injury. (3.2.193-220)
Consider the images that Helena uses to describe her friendship with Hermia; what impressions do these terms convey? Do Hermia and
Helena make up by the end of the play? How are women’s friendships treated by the characters in this play? Why? What do these
relationships reveal about Shakespeare’s own society?
Prompt 4.
According to Greek mythology, Theseus and Hippolyta have a son, named Hippolytus, but their marriage ends soon afterwards (in some
versions Hippolyta dies and in others, Theseus abandons her). Theseus marries another woman, named Phaedra, who tries to seduce
Hippolytus. When he rejects her, she accuses him of rape and kills herself. Then, Theseus curses his son, who soon dies a violent
death. At the end of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the play subtly alludes to Hipplytus when the king and queen of the fairies bless the
three marriage beds. Oberon says that he and Titania shall bless the “issue” (i.e. children) of Theseus and Hippolyta’s bed.
Now, until the break of day,
Through this house each fairy stray.
To the best bride-bed will we,
Which by us shall blessed be;
And the issue there create
Ever shall be fortunate.
So shall all the couples three
Ever true in loving be;
And the blots of Nature’s hand
Shall not in their issue stand;
Never mole, hare lip, nor scar,
Nor mark prodigious, such as are
Despised in nativity,
Shall upon their children be.
With this field-dew consecrate,
Every fairy take his gait;
And each several chamber bless,
Through this palace, with sweet peace;
And the owner of it blest
Ever shall in safety rest.
Trip away; make no stay;
Meet me all by break of day. (5.2.31-52)
Does this blessing come true? Shakespeare selected Theseus and Hippolyta from Greek mythology and used their wedding as the frame for
his own narrative. Then, he alludes to their son, Hippolytus, in the final scene of this play. Why? How might knowing the rest of
these myths influence our interpretation of this play’s themes about love, marriage, and power?
