Criticism on Shakespeare's a Midsummer Night's Dream Essay Example

In many pieces of literature the theme is often obscured in which the author attempts to reveal the hidden truths. Through his utilization of characters, Shakespeare incorporates the personalities of individual beings within the play in order to express the overall message. Shakespeare's extensive use of imagery further demonstrates his conveyance of the surreal nature within the play. In "A Midsummer Night's Dream", Shakespeare uses the mechanicals to differentiate the reality from the dream, while his use of imagination and fairies leads to the lovers' transformation which demonstrates how naive the Athenian youths are. The mechanicals served as a barrier between the worlds of dream and the reality. According to Williams, the mechanics shows a level of reality. Pyramus and Thisbe is a major metamorphosis and they bring back the audience from the "dream state" to reality. The mechanicals both experience the world of dream and the human world through Pyramus and Thisbe. They perform a play that helps the confusion between the two worlds. Shakespeare uses bottom to greatly define this barrier. In the novel, Bottom says, "Pyramus is not killed indeed; and for some better assurance, tell them that I Pyramus am not Pyramus, but bottom the weaver. This will put them out of fear" (Shakespeare 78). Bottom wants to let the audience know that everything is just a play. He wants to show the difference between Pyramus and Bottom the weaver. This statement proves that he draws the line between these two worlds and that he, Bottom, is in the real world, and Pyramus is in the play or the dream. Shakespeare’s use of the mechanicals helps to build the wall between the two fictitious worlds in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream".
Shakespeare uses the fairies to intertwine the two worlds. According to Bloom, "Not only are they obviously the most striking feature of the comedy, intellectually they are the most productive, too. By intruding the fictive worlds of Ovid and English folklore