Contrast in A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare

The concept of contrast plays an important role throughout Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Shakespeare provides many examples of contrast signifying it as a motif. He groups the ideas of contrast together into those of some of the most important roles in the play. Helena is portrayed as tall and Hermia is short. Titania is a beautiful fairy who falls in love with Bottom, who is portrayed as graceless. Moreover, the main sets of characters even have differences. Fairies are graceful and magical creatures, yet tradesmen are clumsy and mortal. Additionally, the tradesmen are always overjoyed while the lovers are always serious with their emotions. Contrast layers throughout the whole play, as examples are shown in nearly every scene.†¦show more content†¦. Titania’s gesture to Bottom shows how generous the fairies are. They are creatures of nature, each has an element of nature to offer to Bottom. Since Bottom is unintelligent, Bottom takes the nam e of the fairies literally. In fact, he addresses the fairy, Mustardseed, and thanks him for tasting so delicious on ox-beef. Shakespeare allows the readers to view fairies as small, peaceful creatures that bring joy and offer their help towards anyone. Without Shakespeare’s new interpretation of fairies, the creatures may still to this day suffer from a negative reputation. Research: Demonic Fairies â€Å"Shakespeare was probably the single greatest contributor to our modern conceptions of faeries. And while Shakespeare’s faeries are not always good, they are certainly no worse—and generally far better—than the mortals in his plays† (Faerie Magick) Shakespeare wrote about Welsh fairies, which resembled small, dainty human beings. However, in the Elizabethan Era, people viewed English fairies. These fairies were insect-like and demonic, non-human (Jones. Shakespearean Fairies). Shakespeare changed the fact that fairies were not malicious and evil but pranksters. â€Å"By using Robin Goodfellow (aka Puck), Shakespeare has chosen one of England’s most notorious faeries to make his point† (Faerie Magick). Puck follows the characteristics of a Welsh fairy, small,Show MoreRelatedWilliam Shakespeare s A Midsummer Night s Dream1474 Words   |  6 Pagesinstance, one could look at the movies A Midsummer Night’s D ream and Shakespeare in Love. The latter follows the life of William Shakespeare himself, everything from his love affair with Viola de Lesseps to his creation of Romeo and Juliet. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is one of the most famous plays of Shakespeare’s, revolving around the tumultuous relationships of four lovers, aided, and sometimes thwarted by the mischief of fairies. 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