Similarities between Shakespeare and his Characters in A Midsummer Night’s Dream
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (hereinafter: Mid) always appears as a very special work of Shakespeare and it is very different from Shakespeare’s other works for not only its exceeding comical elements, but also that miraculous relationship between the characters in the play and Shakespeare himself. In Mid, there are some characters who act like a playwright. Oberon and Puck are the examples because they share some of the qualities of Shakespeare to “control” the plots, though they function differently. With these two special characters, Shakespeare’s magical power for the play is embodied. Bottom is also very alike to Shakespeare. He appears as a very responsible member in the rude mechanicals group. He tries to contribute a lot for the play called “Pyramus and Thisbe”. Bottom has the equal enthusiasm towards theatre; however, Shakespeare mocks him and partly reflects himself with the character Bottom, presenting us that the similar life experience that Bottom has in the play as what he had before and that it is not easy to become a good playwright. Besides, Shakespeare used the play-within-play approach to enhance the idea of “Love” and “What makes a good theatre” in this play. In “Thisbe& Pyramus”, we naturally see it as a symbol as Mid because the plots and the contents in these two plays are very similar, which suggests that the rule mechanicals are, in some degree, Shakespeare because they are writing the similar thing. By that, Shakespeare suggested the ability to imagine on artistic works play an important role to decide whether the works are successful.
Like a playwright, Oberon controls the actions of the young lovers and he contributes and elaborates one of the themes in this play which is chaotic love. Throughout the entire play, Oberon acts like a playwright to decide what will happen next. Besides the “actions” he controls, he is also capable of controlling the...