I have always wondered if I belong to this world we call "reality" , sometimes I wish I were able to live in what is in my mind because there is where I am the person who I dream to be.
When I read
“midsummer’s night dream” the first thought tht came to my mind was that the
lovers; Hermia, Lysander, Demetrious and Helena were only themselves where they
were in the woods. Fantasy or "the woods" show the inner desires of everybody
who inhabits there.
It seems that the potion of love was a kind of “truth
serum” instead of a simply a love potion.
It is true that
the potion confused the lovers in a moment but maybe the objective was to show
that people just want to feel love and enjoy the feeling of being mad in love
for somebody else.
The wood
represents our desires, dreams and madness; it represents what can become when
we are not limited by “real society/world”. For me, it represents a state of
mind that people consider to be wrong just for the fact that it is impulsive
and unconscious.
In the play, the limit between
the wood (dreams) and Athens (reality) becomes blurry when the
Athenians decide to go to the woods, the same happens when we
decide to live against what have been imposed to us by the world.
In the end, they all ended up with the love of their lives and at the same time they were able to bring " inside of them", the wood to Athenas.
I don’t know if I
am right, wrong or if I get the right interpretation of the play, I am just
telling you what I felt and what the play means to me that is why I would like to know more than just your literary interpretation of the play, but what you felt while reading it.
I found this quote on the internet yesterday and I couldn't agree more...What do you think about it
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
*It was hard to write with just one hand,
but I hope you understood what I tried to say*
Sources:
- Shakespeare, William.A Midsummer Night's Dream.Ed. R.A. Foakes. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003.Print
- https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/876-to-be-yourself-in-a-world-that-is-constantly-trying
Hi Eve!
ResponderEliminarLet me tell you that I could not agree more on what you wrote! I thought I was the only one who saw this play in that way. As you mentioned, it seems that the only place in which the lovers can be truly themselves is in the woods, at night, hidden from the real world. I think that it can happen to us as well, that we feel that we need to escape to find ourselves, because the world seems to be telling us what to do and how to behave, live and love. Even in the play, the lovers are happy in the woods, but when they come back, nobody believes what they experienced so the whole tale is just named as a dream (and nothing else but a dream). What about our real life? Do we need to pretend that our deep fantasies are just a small part of our dreams? Probably we will need the help of the fairies to see who we truly are, and perhaps in that moment we won’t feel afraid of showing our inner self.
(By the way, I hope you get better soon <3)
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ResponderEliminarThank you Pauli :) I am glad you like it
EliminarDear Eve:
ResponderEliminarIn may ways, I believe, we can be part of the woods. It does not matter if you are too civilized. I´d say that the woods is not the informality of choosing between playing and not being a player. To my point of view, the woods can be a sate of mind. A moment for all of us to realiza that we are humans, and tha we (perhaps unconciously) thrive to the world of the woods, everyonce in wild, because we need to have faith, We want to believe because we want to have dreams. Of course, the woods must come to an end, but that does not mean that we can not go back to the woods, If any, we can not stay, but we do have the chance to go there and forth, over and over again. Perhaps, this is one of those epic moment when we realize that life is circular. By the end of MSND the reflection is not an aftermat; on the contrary, we must reflect over our lives, and about the forces that are playing upon our selves. I really enjoyed your post. :)