A+Mid+Summer+Night's+Dream

=__//“A Midsummer Night’s Dream//__=

Podcast #1 : Mya and Nava media type="file" key="A Midsummer Night's Dream, act 1,podcast.mp3" align="left" width="240" height="20"

Podcast #2: Mya and Nava media type="file" key="Cactus in Bottom.mp3" width="240" height="20"

__//**Act I, Scene 1**//__

She thinks that the 4 days are going to pass quickly, but theseus' response is that it will be very slow.
 * 1. How is Hippolyta’s reasoning concerning how quickly the next four days will pass different from that of Theseus?**

Egeus has brought his daughter and her two suitor's to Theseus to ask him to either force her to marry the man of his choice or agree with them that he may exercise his right to kill her. Egeus expects him to agree with him and force her into marrying him and give p on her love with Lysander.
 * 2. Why has Egeus brought his daughter and her two suitors to Theseus? What does Egeus expect him to do?**

The proper role for woman is Athenian society is that they must marry the man whom their father chooses, join a nunnery, or their father has the right to kill her because she belongs to him and therefor he has the right. Theseus' ruling is that Hermia must obey his father's wish, be subject to death at her father's hand, or join a nunnery.
 * 3. What was the proper role for women/daughters in Athenian society according to Egeus and Theseus? What is Theseus’s ruling concerning Hermia?**

Lysander's comment about Demetrius's previous love affair complicates things because it creates a fight between the two suitors.
 * 4. How does Lysander’s comment about Demetrius’s previous love affair with Helena complicate things?**

Lysander and Hermia decide to run away together to escape their "seemingly impossible" situation. They then tell Helena that she can have Demetrius to herself because they will be meeting in the forest and then running away to Lysander's aunt's house where they can not be touched by Athenian law.
 * 5. What do Lysander and Hermia plan to do about this seemingly impossible situation? Why do they tell Helena?**

She decides to tell him of their plans because she thinks that he will fall in love with her once again and they can be married.
 * 6. Even though Helena loves Demetrius and is Hermia’s best friend, why does she decide to tell Demetrius of Hermia and Lysander’s plans?**

She has to choose whether she wants to marry demetrius go to a nunnery and become a nun, or be killed, but Lysander said that they could run away together to his aunt's house, and that they will be safe there together and get married because Athenian law can't touch them there.
 * 7. Identify Hermia’s basic dilemma. What are the choices outlined for her by Theseus and her father? What other choice does Lysander suggest?**

__//**Act I, Scene 2**//__

Nick Bottom wants to play all the parts because he is unhappy at home. His wife is quite fed up with his shenanigans and he over compensates outside of his home by wanting to play multiple parts. It was seen in the movie that Bottom attracts and audience and he enjoys the attention he gets from "auditioning" if you will when trying to convince them that he deserves the part.
 * 8. Why does Nick Bottom want to play all the parts?**

I believe Shakespeare included this scene as contrast to the stern, proper, highly educated scene that we saw with the richer/more noble folk. The scene was funny because of Bottom's arogance and because he wanted to play all the parts (including an animal, the lover, and a woman.)
 * 9. In what way is this scene funny? Why do you suppose Shakespeare included this scene?**

The actors are to meet the following night in the forest, which also happens to be the same forest that Lysander and Helena will be meeting in.
 * 10. Where are the actors to meet the following night? Who else is meeting there at the same time?**

Bottom thinks his acting ability is supiror to what thinks it is. He thinks could make people cry he would play the part so well.
 * 11. How would you describe Bottom’s acting ability? What is Bottom’s own opinion of his acting ability?**

__//**Act II, Scene 1**//__

The reader finds out from the current relationship between the characters because they have a conversation. The first fairy asks the Puck is he is indeed the fairy who works for the king and is known to cause trouble. Pick responds that he is indeed this fairy. They discuss that both the king and queen are in the same part of those woods and there could be trouble.
 * 10. What does the reader find out about the current relationship between Oberon, King of the Fairies, and Titania, Queen of the Fairies, from Puck and the first fairy?**

Oberon and Hippolyta had a thing going on, and so did Titania and Theseus. They came to Athens to see Hippolyta and Theseus get married.
 * 11. How have Oberon and Titania been involved in the past with Theseus and Hippolyta; why have they come to Athens?**

Their quarrels bring on natural disasters in the form of extreme storms and hurricanes. The seasons change for the worse and they can bring on plagues. Titania will not give up the boy because a good friend of her had him and later died. She wishes to raise him in place of her deceased friend.
 * 12. What effect has their quarrel had on nature, on the seasons, on humans?**
 * **"**Small streams have been flooded and over flown there banks."
 * "The fields have been ploughed and planted for no reason because of the rain."
 * 13. Why won’t Titania give up the changeling to Oberon?**
 * 13. Why won’t Titania give up the changeling to Oberon?**

14**. What does Oberon send Puck to find?** Oberon sends Puck to find flowers. These flower's juice can make someone fall in fall if dropped onto the eyes.

Oberon's plans for Titania, the fairy queen, is to drip the juice of these flowers in her eyes and make her fall in love with the first vile creature she sees.
 * 15. What are Oberon’s plans for Titania?**

Helena reacts to Demetrius' verbal abuse by using his words against him and saying that this is why she loves him or how that shows he should just give up and love her.
 * 16. How does Helena react to Demetrius’s verbal abuse?**

Her response to the threats of physical abuse are that she would love him more because she is is "spaniel" and she shall follow him no matter how she is treated.
 * 17. What is her response to his threats of physical abuse?**

Helena's behaviour is inappropriate for Athenian women because Athenian woman do not choose who they want to marry (particularly because she is from a more noble family) and because -????????
 * 18. In what way is Helena’s behaviour inappropriate for Athenian women?**

He tells him to put the juice in Demetrius' eyes as well, so he falls in love with Helena.
 * 19. What does Oberon tell Puck to do about Demetrius and Helena?**

//__**Act II, Scene 2**__//

Oberon wants Titania to wake and fall in love with some vile thing because he is jealous that she gives so much attention and love to the changeling child.
 * 20. Why does Oberon want Titania to wake and fall in love with some vile thing?**

Hermia insists because she wants to maintain her modesty as they are not married yet.
 * 21. Why does Hermia insist Lysander sleep a little ways from her?**

Puck anoints Lysander’s eyes because he thinks that he is the Athenian that Oberon was speaking of.
 * 22. Why does Puck anoint Lysander’s eyes?**

Helena's reaction to this sudden love is to think it is mockery. She scorns him and says that she though he was more of a gentleman than to gang up on her with Demetrius.
 * 23. How does Helena react to Lysander’s sudden love for her when he awakens?**

Hermia's dream is a reflection of reality because in the dream Lysander is laughing cruelly while her heart is being eaten, this is almost a metaphor or foreshadowing on the fact that Lysander has just fallen in love with Helena and no longer loves her.
 * 24. How is Hermia’s dream a reflection of reality?**


 * //__Act III Scene 1__//**

The actors going to keep from scaring the ladies when Pyramus kills himself or when the lion roars by creating a prologue to explain that they are really actors and they are not really causing any harm.
 * 25. How are the actors going to keep from scaring the ladies when Pyramus kills himself or when the lion roars?**

The actors going to manage the setting/scenery such as the moonlight and the wall by using one of their actors as the wall and have him hold up his hand to create teh crack in which the lovers talk through and they will create the moonlight by leaving the window open to allow the moon, which is full that night, to shine in.
 * 26. How are the actors going to manage the setting/scenery such as the moonlight and the wall?**

The rest of the actors run off when Bottom reappears because Puck used magic and gave him an ass's head.
 * 27. Why do the rest of the actors run off when Bottom reappears?**

28. What does Puck plan to do when he follows after the other actors? Puck plans to

Bottom reacts to them by being oddly unsuspicious of them. He quite easily accepts it and he makes jokes about the fairy's names.
 * 29. How does Bottom react to Titania and the other fairies?**

This is such an apt statement at the point in the play because
 * 30. Bottom says, "…reason and love keep little company together nowadays." Why is this such an apt statement at this point in the play?**

__//**Act III, Scene 2**//__

Hermia accuses Demitrius of killing Lysander
 * 31. What does Hermia accuse Demetrius of doing?**

Puck and Oberon corrected Puck’s earlier mistake by using a reversal tactic. They put the juice in Lysander's eyes and whispered a spell (in the real play, anyway) to ensure he falls back in love with Hermia.
 * 32. How are Puck and Oberon going to correct Puck’s earlier mistake?**

Helena is upset when Demetrius says he loves her because she thinks he is mocking her. She doesn't realize that his love is real. Helena accuses Hermia of joining in to the prank she think they have all ganged up on her to do.
 * 33. Why is Helena upset when Demetrius says he loves her? Isn’t this what she had wanted all along?**
 * 34. Of what does Helena accuse Hermia?**

Hermia and Helena have been very close in the past. Helena describes this when they are fighting. They were best friends for probably most of there childhood and grew up together.
 * 35. How close had Hermia and Helena been in the past?**

"Is all the counsel that we two have shared, The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent, When we have chid the hasty-footed time" "All school-days' friendship, childhood innocence" "Have with our needles created both one flower, Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion, Both warbling of one song, both in one key, As if our hands, our sides, voices and minds, Had been incorporate. So we grow together, Like to a double cherry, seeming parted, But yet an union in partition; Two lovely berries moulded on one stem; So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart;"

Lysander treats Hermia very coldly. He acts as though he hates her. She does not believe that he could be saying those things when he loved her the night previous,. "Since night you loved me; yet since night you left me."
 * 36. How does Lysander treat Hermia? Why can’t she believe what he says?**

Hermia accuses Helena or stealing her lover.
 * 37. Of what does Hermia accuse Helena?**

Helena afraid of Hermia because she's taller and Hermia is making fun of how short Helena is. Lysander and Demetrius are going off to fight to the death for Helena's love.
 * 38. Why is Helena afraid of Hermia?**
 * 39. What are Lysander and Demetrius going off to do?**

Oberon tells Puck to confuse them to get them seperated.Then he has to put the flower juice in Lysander's eyes and wisper a spell to prevent him from falling in love with Helena again.
 * 40. What does Oberon tell Puck to do about the two young men?**

Oberon is going to undo the process as soon as they can get the changeling child.
 * 41. What is Oberon going to do about Titania?**

Oberon does not fear the coming of day because he says that he is unlike other fairies and can do magic during the day time too.
 * 42. Why doesn’t Oberon fear the coming of day?**

Puck's trickery works well on all four of them.
 * 43. How well does Puck’s trickery work?**

==== **Review Question: The climax, or turning point, of //A Midsummer Night’s Dream// comes at the end of Act 3. In point form describe the major plot points of Act Three starting from when Titania falls in love with Bottom leading to the climax or turning point of the play near the end of act three.** ==== ====First Titania falls in love with Bottom. Then Hermia accuses Demetrius of killing Lysander and Puck anoints Demetrius's eye's so that he falls in love with Helena. Lysander and Demetrius fight over Helena later on and simultaniously Hermia and Helena are fighting. They all fall asleep and then Puck anoints Demetrius's eye's again to fix his previous mistake.====

__//**Act IV, Scene 1**//__

Bottoms has adjusted well to the attention of the fairies. He orders them around as if he owns them and has had them doting on him his entire life.
 * 44. How has Bottom adjusted to the attention of Titania and her fairies?**

Oberon's reaction is almost guild. He is a bit ashamed of what was done and he feels a bit bad for doing it, so he removes the spell.
 * 45. What is Oberon’s reaction to Titania’s infatuation with Bottom?**

Oberon, instead of answering the question, chances the subject so that she doesn't know this it was his fowl play that made her love Bottom.
 * 46. What sort of explanation will Oberon make to Titania’s question about what happened to her?**

Theseus, Hippolyta, Egeus, and the others out in the woods so early to do a fox hunt, but instead come across the two lover pairs.
 * 47. Why are Theseus, Hippolyta, Egeus, and the others out in the woods so early in the morning?**

Theseus’s first explanation of why the young people are asleep in the woods is that it was planned and they were metting them to join the hunt.
 * 48. What is Theseus’s first explanation of why the young people are asleep in the woods?**

Demetrius' explanation is that he was not seeing clearly when he loved Hermia, now that he can see the truth, and the truth is that he loves Helena. He describes it like an illness because now his sickness has passed and he sees clearly. He now loves Helena.
 * 49. What explanation does Demetrius make? Why does he compare his love for Hermia to an illness?**

Theseus’ decision concerning the four young people is that they will all get married together and he overrules Egeus' request.
 * 50. What is Theseus’ decision concerning the four young people?**

The young people can't be sure wether they are awake or dreaming because what happened the night before defies all odds and they were not sure if it was reality.
 * 51. Why can’t the young people be sure whether they are awake or dreaming?**

He is going to entertain the Duke by writing a ballot about his "dream." Although he doesn't actually know it was a dream he decides to pretend it was something he made up in order to not sound crazy.
 * 52. Bottom believes he too has had a dream. How is he going to use that to entertain the Duke?**

__//**Act IV, Scene 2**//__

The other artisans suddenly care deeply about what happen to Bottom and express both their concerns and their love for his "talent" they suddenly think he has.
 * 53. What opinion do the other artisans now have of Bottom since they think he is lost?**

They most regret losing the money that they would have made from preforming not just for one but three weddings (three times the money.)
 * 54. What do they most regret losing by not being able to perform the play?**

The artisans must hurry to the Duke’s palace because they are all going to get married.
 * 55. Why must the artisans hurry to the Duke’s palace?**

Extending the thought process.
====** a) The fourth act opens and ends with Bottom at center stage. What is your opinion of Bottom’s character? How might he be the antithesis, or opposite, of Theseus’s character? **==== In my opinion, Bottom is the antithesis of Theseus' character because he is welcomed in the forth scene, as opposed to Theseus and Egeus, who are feared by the new lovers for their handling of strict Athenian law. Bottom is at the opposite end of the social spectrum from Theseus, yet is less withdrawn and more likely to express his opinion. He is also a control freak of sorts, a quality Theseus does not share.

====** b) How do most of the dreamers respond to the dream experience upon waking? Which character is changed permanently by the dream experience? **====

Most of the dreamers respong by trying to figure out if that was dream or reality. Lysander is changed because he now loves Hermia again.
====** c) In this act, several characters look back at prior infatuations with disbelief. What do you think Shakespeare is saying about love and infatuation? **====

Shakespere is saying that love is an odd thing that often changes without notice. People often do stupid thing when they are in love that they leter regret.
== Act 4 Podcast: Bottom decides to commission Peter Quince to write a ballad called “Bottom’s Dream.” On your own or with a partner, imagine that you have been asked to write the lyrics and compose the musical accompaniment. Remember that at the beginning of act 4, Bottom told the fairies that he likes to listen to the “tongs and bones” (act 4, scene 1, line 30). Tongs were pieces of metal struck against each other and bones were actual bones. These instruments were used in comical or in less sophisticated musical performances. Write the poetry for the ballad ( a minimum of 2 stanzas, 4 lines each), then put it to music! ==

__//**Act V**//__

He dismisses the story because he thinks it is too strange to be true. Hippolyta argues that the all of consistant stories and therefor how could it not be true?
 * 56. Why does Theseus dismiss the stories of the four young people?**

He chooses this one because one he had seen to many times, one was not a topic he wished to be entertained with at the moment, and he liked that it was preformed by townsmen who were of the working class instead of professionals.
 * 57. Why does Theseus choose to see the play about Pyramus and Thisby rather than the other entertainments?**

He tries to keep them from seeing the play because he thinks it is poorly acted out and very unrehearsed.
 * 58. Why does Philostrate try to keep Theseus from seeing the play? What does he say is wrong with it?**

He means that as long as they are being true and sincere there is nothing wrong with endulging them in this play.
 * 59. What does Theseus mean by the lines, "For never anything can be amiss, when simpleness and duty tender it"?**

The prolauge explains that the audience should not be scared of the lion or be worried when they kill themselves. When they go through all the think not to be afraid of it is a bit like summery of all the significant parts of the story and adds a sense of ironic humor for the audience should know what is going on, despite the poor acting.
 * 60. What is accomplished by having the Prologue tell the whole story that the actors are then going to enact?**

Shakespeare uses comments from the audience to enhance the humour of the play that they are watching by having the characters mock the actors on stage.
 * 61. How does Shakespeare use comments from the audience to enhance the humour of the play that they are watching?**

Hippolyta’s reaction to the play is one of disdain and scorn, as she disapproves of the actor’s abilities and the quality of the play.
 * 62. What is Hippolyta’s reaction to the play?**

Thisbe’s final speech is humorous because she overdoes it; especially with the last lines of “A farewell friends! So Thisbe ends! Adieu, adieu, adieu!”
 * 63. In what way is Thisbe’s final speech humorous?**

Oberon tells the fairies to help him bless the couples on their night of wed.
 * 64. What does Oberon tell the fairies to do?**

He apologizes for the mistakes he made, and tells the audience that if they liked the play then tell your friends, but if you disliked it, think of it as a dream. Another reference to the titles.
 * 65. What is the purpose of Puck’s final speech?**

__//**Extending the thought process:**//__

==FInd at least one example of each of the following that occurs during the play within the play. Write down the quote that illustrates example: E xcessive alliteration, breaking the play’s illusion of reality using the wrong word or name, repeating a word excessively ridiculous metaphor == breaking the play’s illusion of reality: When Bottom directly talks to the audience to answer the qusetion. using the wrong word or name: "...Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams excessive alliterationr: "For, by thy gracious, golden, glittering gleams..." repeating a word excessively: "...die,die,die,die..."

It helps me understand the relationship because reactions are just as important as the actions themselves.We see this when reading about how the audience to Quince and the group's play reacts to their acting.
 * a) In reading the play-within-a-play, we become the audience for the drama played out by Theseus, Hippolyta, and the others. These performers, in turn, form the audience for the reenactment of Pyramus and Thisbe. How does observing another audience help you understand the relationship between audience and performers**

===b) Modern television shows often create comic effects by having a silly, innocent, or “clueless” character and a sarcastic, knowing, clever character play off of each other. What examples can you think of?=== The TV show Corner Gas had characters fitting that description. Wanda was a know-it-all sarcastic character, Hank and Oscar were the seemingly less intelligent characters who did little and constantly get made fun of. Lacy was the shy, intelligent, but helpful character who was just trying to fit in. Brent was a character who was more intelligent than the others but also got made fun of and got caught up in schemes.

===**c) Identify ways in which Pyramus and Thisbe might be unsuitable for a wedding celebration. Are there any ways in which the play might be appropriate? In what ways is the play-within-a-play an ironic commentary on what the two pairs of young lovers (Demetrius and Helena, Lysander and Hermia) have gone through earlier?**=== Pyramus and Thisbe might be unsuitable for a wedding celebration because both the main characters die, causing a emotional reaction to the audience watching. It may be a good idea, however, because it revolves around love and devotion.

Completion 23/25 Effort 22/25 Content 23/25 Total 68/75

Podcast 1 - 20/20 Podcast 2 - 20/20