Midsummer's Night's Dream": Shakespeare's Wedding Gif

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a comedy play written by William Shakespeare in about 1595 or 1596. It is set in Athens and consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One subplot involves a conflict among four Athenian lovers. Another follows a group of six amateur actors rehearsing a play which they are to perform before the wedding. Both groups find themselves in a forest inhabited by fairies who manipulate the humans and are engaged in their own domestic intrigue.

The play is believed to have been written for and performed at an aristocratic wedding, with Queen Elizabeth I in attendance. It is one of Shakespeare's most famous and beloved plays, and explores themes of the irrationality of love, desire, friendship, possession, jealousy and magic.

The play's Athenian lovers

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a comedy play written by William Shakespeare and is set in Athens. It consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One of these subplots involves a conflict among four Athenian lovers: Hermia, Helena, Lysander, and Demetrius.

The play opens with Theseus and Hippolyta, who are four days away from their wedding. Hermia is in love with Lysander, but her father, Egeus, demands that she marry Demetrius. When Hermia and Lysander make a secret plan to elope, Helena, who is in love with Demetrius, tells him about the plan in an attempt to win his favour. All four of them end up in the forest outside Athens, where they encounter a group of fairies led by Oberon and Titania, who are also there for the royal wedding.

Oberon and Titania are estranged due to a dispute over a changeling that Titania is protecting. Oberon seeks to punish her by instructing his sprite, Puck, to gather the magical love-in-idleness flower and squeeze its juice onto her eyelids while she sleeps, so that she falls in love with the first living thing she sees upon waking. However, Puck mistakenly administers the juice to Lysander, who falls in love with Helena. This creates a love square that causes much confusion and conflict among the four Athenian lovers.

Oberon eventually resolves the situation by restoring the lovers to their original states, and the play ends with a triple wedding between the two couples and Theseus and Hippolyta.

The mechanicals' play

The mechanicals are six characters in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' who perform the play-within-a-play, 'Pyramus and Thisbe'. They are a group of amateur actors from Athens, looking to make names for themselves by having their production chosen as the courtly entertainment for the royal wedding party of Theseus and Hippolyta. The biggest ham among them, Nick Bottom, becomes the unlikely object of interest for the fairy queen Titania after she is charmed by a love potion and he is turned into a monster with the head of an ass by Puck.

The mechanicals and the roles they play in 'Pyramus and Thisbe' are:

• Peter Quince, the carpenter, who acts as the Prologue
• Nick Bottom, the weaver, who plays Pyramus
• Francis Flute, the bellows-mender, who plays Thisbe
• Tom Snout, the tinker, who plays the Wall
• Snug, the joiner, who plays the Lion
• Robin Starveling, the tailor, who plays Moonshine

The mechanicals are collectively known as the 'Rude Mechanicals', named for their occupations as skilled manual labourers. Their play is described as "the most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe". In performing the play, Quince recites the prologue but struggles to fit his lines into the meter and make the rhymes. The noble audience makes jocular comments, while the rest of the mechanicals struggle (except Bottom, who confidently improvises).

In the final scene of the play, Theseus, Hippolyta, and the lovers watch the six workmen perform 'Pyramus and Thisbe' in Athens. The mechanicals are so terrible at playing their roles that the guests laugh as if it were meant to be a comedy, and everyone retires to bed.

The fairies' magic

Oberon seeks to punish Titania for refusing to give him custody of her Indian changeling boy, whose mother was one of Titania's worshippers. He instructs his servant, Puck, to concoct a magical juice derived from the "love-in-idleness" flower. When applied to the eyelids of a sleeping person, the juice causes them to fall in love with the first living thing they see upon waking.

Oberon intends to make Titania fall in love with an animal of the forest, thereby shaming her into giving up the Indian boy. He also uses the juice to manipulate the human lovers in the forest, causing them to fall in and out of love with each other.

Puck also transforms Nick Bottom, a rude mechanical (labourer) and one of the amateur actors rehearsing a play for the Duke's wedding, by giving him the head of a donkey. When Titania awakens from her enchanted sleep, she falls in love with Bottom.

Oberon eventually releases Titania from the spell, and they lead a fairy blessing of the marriages of the play's protagonists.

The wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta

The play consists of several subplots and interconnecting plots that take place in the woodland and the realm of Fairyland, all connected by the celebration of the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta. One subplot involves a conflict among four Athenian lovers: Hermia, Lysander, Helena, and Demetrius. Hermia, in love with Lysander, seeks refuge in the forest near Athens when her father, Egeus, demands that she marry Demetrius, his chosen suitor for her. Lysander and Hermia plan to elope with the help of Helena, who is in love with Demetrius. However, Helena, desperate for Demetrius' love, betrays her friend and informs him of their plan. Demetrius then follows the lovers into the forest.

Meanwhile, a group of six amateur actors, including Nick Bottom and Peter Quince, are rehearsing a play, "The Most Lamentable Comedy and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisbe," which they plan to perform at the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta. In the forest, they encounter Puck, Oberon's mischievous servant, who plays a trick on Bottom by giving him an ass's head. This adds a comical element to the play as the actors' rehearsals are interrupted by Puck's antics.

The forest is also inhabited by fairies, including Oberon, the King of the Fairies, and his queen, Titania, who have come to Athens for the wedding. Oberon and Titania are in the midst of a quarrel, and Oberon seeks to punish Titania by causing her to fall in love with the next creature she sees upon waking. He achieves this by having Puck anoint her eyes with magic juice. When Titania wakes up, she falls in love with Bottom due to the magic juice and his donkey head, leading to a humorous situation.

Eventually, Oberon's magic is used to restore Titania and the four lovers to their original states. Theseus, now married to Hippolyta, invites the two couples to join him and his bride in a triple wedding celebration. The wedding festivities include the performance of the play by Bottom and his troupe, which turns out to be a comical and inept presentation that parodies the lovers' perilous encounters in the forest.

The Indian changeling

In Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream", the Indian changeling is a ward of Titania, the Queen of the Fairies. The changeling is a boy, referred to as a "lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king" and a "sweet changeling". The boy's mother was a votaress of Titania's order and after his mother's death, he was raised by the queen.

The changeling is the source of strife between Titania and Oberon, the King of the Fairies. Oberon is jealous of the attention Titania lavishes on the boy and wants him for himself as a knight or henchman. However, Titania refuses to give up the child, going so far as to crown him "with flowers" and making "him all her joy". This refusal angers Oberon and he uses a magical flower to put her under a spell, causing her to fall in love with a man with a donkey's head. While Titania is under the spell, Oberon searches the forest for the changeling and eventually finds him offstage.

The changeling is never seen on stage and is only mentioned in passing by the fairies. This absence, along with the discrepancy between the stories of Oberon and Titania about the boy's origins, suggests that his mythical origins may be rooted in multiple sources of European traditional folklore. In these folk traditions, changelings are either children abducted by fairies or the creatures left behind in their place—deformed or imbecilic fairy offspring.

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