Fairies In A Midsummer Night's Dream

The History of A Midsummer Night’s Dream Shakespeare’s plays can usually be categorized into three types: Comedies, tragedies, and histories. His play A Midsummer Night’s Dream embodies the comedy category, but also follows the socially accepted norms of that time in history. In the story, a girl by the name of Hermia is in love with a man named Lysander and wants to marry him, but her father, Egeus, forbids it. He instead wants her to marry, Demetrius and will not compromise on the matter. Lord Theseus orders Hermia to marry Demetrius as her father demands, or to be a nun for the rest of her life. Lysander and Hermia run away to be with each other, but are found by Demetrius because of Helena, Hermia’s friend, because of her love for Demetrius. All four are in

2). Fairies are described as mischievous and this is shown in the play by Puck. He is described as “That shrewd and knavish sprite” (2.1.19) which corresponds to the beliefs of the people. The difference is that Elizabethan fairies are malicious creatures that reward and punish humans. England’s commoners believed that fairies loved cleanliness and rewarded the humans when they kept their homes clear of clutter and punished messy people (Elizabethan, par. 3). Shakespeare’s fairies by comparison are harmless sprites that play tricks on humans. Fairies are also described as “an airy spirit” (3. 1. 82), the complete opposite of what the commoners believed them to be (Elizabethan, par. 11). At the end of the play, Puck calls the fairies “shadows” (5.1.383). Shakespeare reduced the wickedness of fairies from wicked spirits to simple dreams and shadows (Elizabethan, par. 11). His plays are the first pieces of literature that addresses fairies this