Questions A Midsummer Night's Dream Answer Key

Questions A Midsummer Night's Dream Act I, Scene 1 1.What, according to law, will happen if she refuses this marriage? Why do you think she is willing to take this risk? According to Athenian law she will be killed or must go to a nunnery. I think she will take this risk because she is in love. People should be able to marry who they love! Look on page 5 for evidence to support this! Egeus says, “I can either make her marry Demetrius- or have her killed.” 2.Compare Hermia’s situation to modern women today. Today in the United States women are free to marry who they want to marry. Unfortunately there are still parts of the world where women are not free to marry who they wish. For example, in Pakistan, there are still “honor killings” which happen if a woman marries someone that her father does not want her to marry. This means that the woman is killed by her own family (usually the men in the family kill her) because she went against her father’s wishes. These men are usually not held accountable in court. They are not prosecuted and don’t go to jail (usually). 3.What has been said against Demetrius, the man Egeus wants Hermia to marry? Other than that, how much difference is there between the two young men? Demetrius got Helena to fall in love with him. Then he broke her heart. He is unfaithful. There is not much difference between the two men. On page 9 (Lysander is talking to Theseus about how Demetrius is unfaithful 4.Notice the lightning metaphor. What is the metaphor? What 2 things are being compared? On page 13 Lysander says, “Their time together might be as fleeting as a shadow or as short as a dream, lasting only as long as it takes a lightning bolt to flash across the sky.” This metaphor is comparing love and time. It is saying that love can go as quickly as it came. Lysander says, “That’s how intense things like love are quickly destroyed.” 5.Notice the importance of the moon. It will be important throughout the play. Why is the moon so important? On page 3, Theseus says, “We’ll be married in four days, on the day of the new moon.” They are going to get married on the new moon. 6.What does Helena plan to do with the news of the elopement of Lysander and Hermia? Why? Elopement means running away to get married. Helena is going to go tell Demetrius that Hermia is running away. She is telling him this because she loves Demetrius (she is obsessed with him). She will get to see him if she tells him this. (page 21). 7.How does Helena describe love in her soliloquy? (A soliloquy is when only one person is speaking...usually for a long time....) Page 19 and page 21 She believes she is not beautiful enough for Demetrius. She is complaining about how love makes you blind. Act I, Scene 2 8.Peter Quince and his cast are nervous about doing things wrong during their play such as “scaring the ladies”. Given what we've seen of Athenian law (in this play and in Social Studies), how reasonable is this fear that they might do something wrong? Peter Quince and his cast are afraid that the lion will be too scary for the ladies. Quince says, “If you roar too ferociously, you’ll scare the...ladies and make them scream. And that would get us all executed.” This is extremely unlikely that they will get executed. Peter Quince and the others are not very smart! Look on page 29. ACT II 1.What type of characteristics does Puck have? (Robin Goodfellow)? Look on page VIII. This page comes before the play actually starts. Look under Robin Goodfellow who is Puck. Puck has the following characteristics: mischievous, sneaky, intelligent, and always causing trouble. In the play he makes people fall in love with different people. He enjoys all the problems that he causes. 2.What do we learn about the past history of Theseus? How is this similar and different from other stories about Theseus? Titania is in love with Theseus (p.37). Titania talks about how he has many different women. Theseus is an ancient Greek Athenian hero. He was an important hero. He dated many different women. He is famous for killing a minotaur (bull head/man body). Look on vii (before the play). On page vii, it says, “Theseus is a hero from Greek mythology- he refers to the fact that he’s Hercules’ cousin at one point- so his presence signals to the reader that the play takes place in a mythical Greek past.” 3.Read Titania's version of the argument over the young boy carefully. Describe what she says about ships: How does her version differ from Oberon's? Comparing pregnant women to ship sails that are full of wind. She was a good friend of the boy’s mother. (page 41- Look at what Titania) She helped raise the boy since his mom died. She remembers the mom when she is on the shore. She raised the boy after the mom died in childbirth. Look on page 43 to find out what Oberon says about the boy: Oberon wants the boy to be part of his crew. Oberon is jealous that Titania is spending all of this time with the boy. Look on page 41 at what Oberon says. 4.Read Oberon's description of love-in-idleness carefully. How does he describe love? Look on page 43. Cupid’s bow hit a flower. It turned the flower purple. The girls call it “love in idleness.” Oberon is going to use that flower to make people in fall in love with each other. It’s like a love potion. ACT 2 SCENE 2 5.What does Shakespeare do in the language of the fairies (as in Titania's speech) to make us feel that the fairies are tiny, even if they are actually played by normal-sized children? Look on page 53. The fairies are singing. Some of the words the fairies say include: “lullaby, you long legged things,” They are singing about keeping spiders away. If they are worried about spiders, snakes, worms, deadly lizards. Their song rhymes. The fairies are described as dainty. 6.Read Hermia's dream carefully. Much attention has been paid to the dream. What, at various levels of meaning, does the dream seem to say? How accurate is it? On page 65 Hermia is dreaming. She dreamed that a snake was eating her heart while Lysander sat smiling and watching. She doesn’t see Lysander when she wakes up. Maybe this dream is showing that Lysander did because he got the love potion. ACT III 1.What problems do Bottom and the others find with the play? How do they intend to solve those problems and meet what they consider to be the expectations of their audience? Bottom has a problem with the death scene and the lion in the play. Bottom’s solution is that they are going to write a prologue to warn the ladies about this. (page 67- Bottom’s lines at the bottom of the page). 2.Compare Bottom’s his “wisdom” in Act 3 Scene 1 with Lysander's more traditional "wisdom" in Act 2 Scene 2. Who makes more sense? Lysander is smarter than Bottom because he has convinced Hermia to run away with him. Bottom is the least intelligent because he is oblivious to everything. The play that he acts in is not very good. His fears about scaring the ladies doesn’t make sense either. Quince wrote the play. 3.We began the play with both men loving Hermia; now both love Helena, as Demetrius awakes.How many times have the women changed whom they love? The only female who changes who she loves is Titania. Helena always loves Demetrius. Hermia always loves Lysander. 4.What does Helena, still thinking they are all ganging up on her, say about the childhoods of the women? Look on page 99, Helena is reminding Hermia about when they were kids and still friends. She is upset because she thinks they are all ganging up on her. 5.From various descriptions in the arguments in 3.2, what can you say about the physical characteristics of Helena and Hermia? Hermia is shorter (page 107). Hermia is also known as a good fighter even though she is shorter than Helena (109). Hermia is saying that Helena wears a lot of makeup, and doesn’t look good because of this. 6.Why do you think Shakespeare is still a famous playwright today? What is it about his writing that speaks to audiences from his century to our century? People can relate to the drama about love. They can relate to this. They love the drama, and they love that there is magic in it. People love reading about a love triangle. ACT IV 1.Is Bottom as a donkey any different than Bottom as a man (except, of course, for his donkey head)? In what humorous ways is he obviously a donkey? Look on page where Bottom says, “Actually, I’d like a few pounds of grass. I’d like to munch on some good dry oats.” “There’s nothing like good hay, really sweet hay.” This shows how Bottom is acting like a donkey and eating like a donkey. On page 123 or 125 2.When Theseus and Hippolyta (and the others) enter, it is morning. What in their part of the scene is similar to the music of Oberon and Titania? BONUS QUESTION- Look up on your own! 3.The last sleeper to awake is, of course, Bottom. How does he describe his experience? Page 139 Bottom thinks that the whole thing was a dream. He said that he thought he was a donkey but he would be an idiot to say that. 4.Is there a new person introduced in Act IV/Scene II? If so, who is it and what are his/her character traits? BONUS QUESTION- Look up on your own! ACT V 1.Read Theseus's first speech carefully, especially from "The lunatic, the lover, and the poet" What point is Theseus making about poetry or drama? On page 147 Theseus says, “Lunatics, lovers, and poets are ruled by their overactive imaginations. Some people think they see devils and monsters everywhere-and they’re lunatics. Lovers are just as crazy.” He also says that poets have such a strong imagination that when they are happy, it’s because of magic. They also think that when they are afraid, it is because of a wild animal. Theseus is saying that poets are similar to people in love due to their imagination and how they act crazy like people in love do. 2.How do Hippolyta’s and Theseus’ ideas differ? On page 147, Theseus talks about the lovers and what happened to them and basically says that they are acting crazy because they are in love. He does not believe it is due to something magical. He does not believe that it really happened. Hippolyta, on the other hand, believes them. She says, “...the fact that they all saw and heard exactly the same things, make me think there’s more going on here than imaginary fantasies.” 3.Hippolyta is afraid of how the mechanicals will be treated, but Theseus gives her an assuring response (He tells her something that makes her feel better). What does he tell her that assures her? On page 153 Theseus says, “I’ll watch this play. Nothing can really be bad when it’s created by simple people who try hard.” 4.The play of Pyramus and Thisbe is, of course, a mess. How do Theseus and Hippolyta respond to it? They find it amusing. They think it is a strange play, but they think it is funny. They tell the actors that they do not want to hear an epilogue (which is an explanation of the ending). They probably say this because they have seen enough! Hippolyta says to Theseus on page 165, “This is the silliest thing I’ve ever seen.” Theseus says on page 155, “This guy doesn’t pay much attention to punctuation.” Both of these examples show that they think the play is silly and needs some work. 5.How is the play, “Pyramus and Thisbe” similar to the play by Shakespeare that we are reading? The play, “Pyramus and Thisbe”, is a play within the play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It is similar because it is about lovers and their problems. 6.How does Puck turn the ideas of the play back onto the audience? On page 181 Robin (Puck) says, “If we actors have offended you, just think of it this way and everything will be all right- you were asleep when you saw these visions and this silly and pathetic story was no more real than a dream.” He also says that if you like the play, clap. If you don’t like the play, he will make it up to you. Then he actually admits that he is a liar. In the end, he is willing to play a trick on us, the audience, too!