Answer TWO (or ONE, in greater detail) of the following:
Q1: For one of the first times in the play, Helena speaks a long monologue in blank verse in 3.2. What makes this speech so significant in the play? Also consider who the speech is made to, and why this might account for her change in language.
Q2: After humiliating Titania (and taking the Indian child), Oberon magnanimously declares, "Now thou and I are new in amity,/And will tomorrow midnight solemnly/Dance in Duke Theseus' house triumphantly" (4.1). How does she respond to be drugged and tricked? Has she been 'tamed' by him? Or does she realize it was a good trick and simply shrug it off? How do you account for her very brief response in Act 4, as well as the language she speaks?
Q3: What do you make of Demetrius' claim in Act 4 that:
But like a sickness I did loathe this food.
But, as in health, come to my natural taste,
Now I do wish it, love it, long for it,
And will forevermore be true to it. (4.1)
Is his love for Helena his "natural taste"? Isn't he the only one who isn't restored to his senses? So did Puck have to drug him to force a happy ending? Or have any of them been restored to their "natural taste"?
Q4: At the end of Act 3, Puck famously declares,
Jack shall have Jill;
Naught shall go ill,
The man shall have his mare again, and all shall be
well. (3.2).
A comedy by definition ends in one or more marriages, so Shakespeare had to conclude this play with the triple marriages of the royal couple, as well as Lysander/Hermia & Demetrius/Helena. But what is being celebrated here? Is Shakespeare, like Puck, merely making fun of the audience's need for happy--if forced--endings? Is he making square pegs fit round holes? Or does he share the misogynistic tastes of his audiences, which wanted to see women tamed and men the masters of their domains? Is Shakespeare ultimately on Theseus & Oberon's side?
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