Monday, March 16, 2009

A Midsummer Night's Dream: Act III

Act 2 opens with Titania and Oberon, the Queen and King of the fairies, in an argument. Titania has kidnapped a young boy who she intends to raise as a son, but Oberon wants the boy to be his own personal soldier. He makes Titania even angrier by interrupting her and her followers' fairy dances. Oberon sends Robin Goodfellow (AKA Puck) to fetch a magic love potion flower. When the flower's juice is squirted on the eyelids of a sleeping person, hey fall in love with the first thing they see when they wake up.  He plans to use it to make Titania fall in love with something very nasty. 
While Puck is gone, Oberon observes Helena and Demetrius in the woods. He sees how much Helena loves Demetrius, and how mean Demetrius is to Helena. When Puck returns, he send him to use the flower to make Demetrius fall in love with Helena. However, Puck accidentally puts the potion on Lysander's eyes, when he is asleep next to Hermia. When Demetrius abandons Helena, she sees Lysander and wakes him up. He then falls madly in love with her, but when he tells her this she thinks he is taunting her. 
She goes off to follow Demetrius, and Lysander runs after her. Hermia wakes up and Lysander is gone, so she goes to find him.

I think Act 2 was very funny because now there's a "love square," Hermia loves Lysander, Lysander loves Helena, Helena loves Demetrius, and Demetrius loves Hermia, but none of them love the person who loves them. 

2 comments:

  1. Yve, did you create that "love square" graphic yourself? That is an awesome visual representation of the predicament that these four characters have gotten into. Excellent job!

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  2. Yve that is so cool! I never really thought of the story like that!

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