In your study of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream this week, you’ve probably noticed that the play offers several groupings or classes of characters. We begin the play with the aristocrats Theseus and Hippolyta, along Hermia, Helena, Lysander, and Demetrius. From these kings and queens and associated royals we then meet a parallel set of upper-class figures, Oberon and Titania, only these figures are supernatural rulers of the fairy world, which is also populated by the likes of Puck, Peaseblossom, Mustardseed, and their associates. We are also introduced to the group of “rude mechanicals”—the artisan laborers that include Nick Bottom the weaver, Snug the joiner, and Flute the bellows-mender. Each group of characters represents its own interests, and yet part of what makes A Midsummer Night’s Dream such a work of mastery is that it manages to bring these seemingly separate classes of characters into stunning relation, so much so that the worlds of the aristocrats, fairies, and mechanicals are intertwined.
For this response paper, construct an argument about how Shakespeare addresses one of the three topics below from the intertwined perspectives of the aristocrats, fairies, and mechanicals:
· Patriarchy and gender identity
In your 2-page (double spaced) response paper, you will want to establish the specific topic you will address and then discuss in specific and concrete terms how that topic is taken up by characters from all three of the classes outlined above. How do the different classes of characters inflect this topic differently? Conversely, in what ways does this topic bring the different classes of characters together? The paper should cite specific quotations from the text and analyze the language of the play to support its claims. It should also be sure to address the topic from the perspective of the aristocrats, fairies, and mechanicals.
Why are we doing this?
This assignment will help you achieve three related learning outcomes:
· First: to apply one or more concepts from the lectures and readings (i.e. patriarchy, sexual politics, metatheatricality) to a reading of the play;
· Second: to discuss how Shakespeare constructs different kinds of characters who
· Second, to practice making concrete claims and supporting them with textual evidence from Shakespeare’s plays.
