Midsummer Night's Dream- Puck the Protagonist?
In this essay I am going to explore the reasons as to why Puck is such an important character in the play a Midsummer's nights dream, and explain how his spirit seems to dominate the whole mood of the play.
Puck first appears in Act 2 of the play.
Puck is the most important fairy aide to the king of faries Oberon, he is introduced into the play by a fairy as Robin Goodfellow because people wanted to stay on his good side since he was so mischievous, she refers to him as a “...knavish sprite, called Robin Goodfellow.” p 33 lines 16-17.
Puck being introduced in this way helps the audience to know a bit about how mischievous and naughty he can be before we see him do anything in the play, he is preceded by the reputation he has made for himself.
Puck seems to regard himself as a sort of jester to the fairy king he says “I jest to Oberon and make him smile,” p 33 line 29.
Puck sees himself as above common folk such as the mechanicals who are putting on the play in the forest, he even refers to them as “a crew of patches,rude mechanicals”. P 53 line 12.
He also sees himself as being far more important and clever than mortals, to Oberon he says “Lord what fools these mortals be!”, showing that he sees himself as far more superior intellectually than the mere mortals.
Puck is ordered by Oberon to put a magical love juice in the eyes of the fairy queen Titania, so that when she wakes up she will fall in love with the first person she sees.
This is a very important part of the play as it sets the wheels in motion for the rest of the story to take place.
Oberon also tells Puck to administer the love potion to sort out the problems of the young would-be lovers Helena and Demetrius but he mistakenly gives it to the wrong person, this being Lysander.
The way Puck speaks is called poetic verse, and he often refers to the natural world “through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier,”p 49, line 26, this...