Appearance versus reality theme elements in literature

MND

William Shakespeare's play a Midsummer Night's Dream revolves around the confusion between appearance and reality. There is a play-within -- a play, the presence of non-human entities and a fairy kingdom, and the presence of magical potions that create a dreamlike reality. The magical potions also act as hallucinogens for the main characters, who confuse appearance with reality. All the while the forest action takes place, the more ordinary Athenian world of Theseus and Egeus reels the audience back in. And yet the bulk of the play takes place in the magical, alternative reality of the forest. Characters like Oberon and Titania become real, at least as real as any other character in the play. Their non-human identity means little considering the whole play is an alternative reality for audiences. Indeed, Puck speaks directly to the audience, purposefully blending the "appearance" of the play with the "reality" of the audience or reader. In a Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare blends appearance and reality via integrating the audience into the play; creating an alternative reality in the forest; and via the use of mind-altering substances.

The first act of the play takes the audience into the alternative reality of the "play," on which the lives of Theseus, Hippolyta, Hermia, Egeus and the rest of the cast of human characters are revealed. In Act I, Scene ii, another layer of reality is introduced when within this overarching Shakespearean production a new stage play is created. Quince's house is the setting for the second layer of reality, created within a Midsummer Night's Dream. Quince's production of the Pyramus and Thisby story is acted out by him, Snug, Bottom, Flute, Snout, and Starveling. Bottom declares his intention to manipulate reality via playing with the audience's emotions: "That will ask some tears in the true performing of / it: if I do it, let the audience look to their / eyes; I will move storms, I will condole in some / measure." Creating this intermediary set of characters is one of the main techniques Shakespeare uses to confound appearance and reality in a Midsummer Night's Dream.

Act II reveals yet another layer of Shakespeare's reality in a Midsummer Night's Dream. In Act II, the central human drama is shifted from the realistic and familiar world of Athenian reality to the world of the woods in which fairies dwell. Even the fairies allude to yet another layer of reality, when Puck recalls the story of Oberon and Titania fighting over the Indian prince: "Oberon is passing fell and wrath, / Because that she as her attendant hath / a lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king," (Act II, scene i). Moreover, it is soon revealed that the alternative forest reality is filled with different laws of physics than the familiar worlds. Shakespeare shows that these two worlds are well-integrated and blend seamlessly because the central human characters like Hermia and Helena, and Demetrius do not seem to suffer from any existential angst about their experiences in the woods.