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A Midsummer Night's Dream

by William Shakespeare

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Patriarchy's Influence on Gender Roles and Social Harmony in A Midsummer Night's Dream

Summary:

In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare explores patriarchy's influence on gender roles and social harmony. The play depicts male-dominated control through characters like Theseus and Egeus, who enforce patriarchal norms. However, it also critiques these norms by highlighting the struggles of female characters such as Hermia and Titania, who challenge male authority. Ultimately, the play suggests that social harmony is achieved when women are allowed to choose their partners, subtly advocating for a more flexible patriarchal system.

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Does A Midsummer Night's Dream support patriarchy?

This is an interesting question. You could argue that the play is overall supportive of patriarchy, since both Oberon and Theseus get what they want. Oberon obtains possession of the Indian child given to his wife; Theseus marries Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, after abducting her. Theseus also upholds patriarchy when he strongly backs Egeus in insisting that Egeus's daughter, Hermia, marry the man Egeus wants for her husband.

Nevertheless, Shakespeare also uses this narrative frame to critique patriarchy. We are meant to feel sympathy for Hermia, who is faced with dire consequences if she doesn't obey her father's wishes and give up her true love. Hermia, Helena, Hippolyta, and Titiania are all portrayed as strong women, and in the end, Hermia and Helena both marry their beloved.

In sum, the plays supports patriarchy as a social framework but advocates for a flexible patriarchy that allows women (at least women who are not queens) a strong voice in choosing in their marriage partners.

Even the plot of the play-within-a-play, Pyramus and Thisbe (although it is performed at the wedding in a comic manner), reinforces the idea that a rigid patriarchy can be tragic.

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Does A Midsummer Night's Dream support patriarchy?

In my opinion,A Midsummer Night's Dream definitely reinforces a patriarchal society. There are several examples starting with Theseus, the Duke of Athens (and the Athenian law he rules with).

First of all, Theseus took Hippolyata (Queen of the Amazons) by force as spoils of war, and forced her to marry him.  There is some evidence that she came to love him, but she had no choice in the arrangement at the beginning.

Hermia's father, Egeus, is a prime example of the male-dominated society, as he treats his daughter as property and tries to force his marriage choice (Demetrius) on Hermia when she would rather have Lysander.

The law backs Egeus up, as we see when Theseus tells Hermia that according to Athenian law, she must bend to her father's will, be executed, banished, or forced to join a convent and remain a virgin the rest of her life.

Even in the spirit world, we see male domination. Oberon and Titania fight over a changeling child she has been given...but Oberon plays dirty to get his way. He gets Puck to put the juice from the love-in-idleness flower into Titania's eyes so she will be humiliated and fall in love with an ass (donkey). When she is distracted, then, he takes the child and wins the game.

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How does A Midsummer Night's Dream convey male-dominated control in a patriarchal society?

Male power and authority are critical themes in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and when reading this play, you can certainly get a sense of female oppression. One need look no further than Egeus, Hermia's father, and the way in which he views his daughter as a possession to be disposed of according to his will. He wishes for her to marry Demetrius, and Hermia's own preferences have no place in this arrangement.

At the same time, this system of male power and patriarchal domination is maintained and supported by the power of Athenian law, which recognizes and supports Egeus's authority over his daughter. You can see this in the play's opening scene, where Theseus, king of Athens, grants Hermia three options: she can either bow to her father's will and marry Demetrius, enter into nunnery, or be executed. This is the reason that Hermia and Lysander flee from Athens to begin with. Additionally, you can look towards the example of Theseus, who had explicitly defeated Hippolyta in armed conflict before claiming her as his bride.

These themes of male power can be found in the fairies as well. Consider the power struggle between Oberon and Titania (and the lengths that Oberon would go to in order to win that power struggle against his wife). Oberon places her under an enchantment, making her fall in love with Bottom (who himself is enchanted to have the head of a donkey), all so that he could steal the child she was protecting.

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How does A Midsummer Night's Dream convey male-dominated control in a patriarchal society?

Patriarchy is certainly a theme in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, but it is more of a challenged patriarchy than a continued patriarchy. Let's explore this theme and also look at Shakespeare's use of verse and prose.

As the play opens, Egeus is arriving at Duke Theseus's court to get help with his daughter, Hermia. Egeus wants Hermia to marry Demetrius, but Hermia has chosen Lysander instead and will not obey her father. Egeus wants Theseus to make Hermia obey or suffer the consequences. Here is the patriarchal system both in action and being challenged. Hermia is determined to marry for love even if that means disobeying her father. She and Lysander run away after Theseus warns her that her continued disobedience could end in her being banished to a convent or even executed. Hermia will take the risk for love.

Meanwhile, among the fairies, Oberon and Titania are engaged in a conflict of their own. Titania has been given an Indian prince, and Oberon wants to make him a knight, but Titania refuses. Oberon cannot get his own way (apparently the patriarchal system does not work too well with fairies either), so he starts the whole episode of the love potion that gets out of hand due to Puck's blundering.

Males and females alike end up pretty foolish thanks to Puck and his love potion, but everything works out in the end, and Hermia gets to marry her beloved Lysander. She has successfully challenged the system.

Now let's take a moment to think about Shakespeare's use of verse and prose in this play. Most of it is actually written in verse. The nobles like Theseus and the pairs of lovers speak in verse, a lovely iambic pentameter. The fairies also speak in verse. The “mechanicals,” or the common folk like Bottom, speak in prose, which reflects their lower-class status.

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How do relationships in A Midsummer Night's Dream exemplify gender roles?

Through most of the play, pairings of male-female characters exemplify Renaissance patriarchal relationships. In these pairings, women are supposed to—and most often do—subordinate themselves to the will of men. When women don't, this is portrayed as upsetting the ordered harmony of the universe, but that disruption also adds energy to play.

As the play opens, Hippolyta, though she was formerly queen of the Amazons, a female-only group, now has to bow to the wishes of Theseus, who took her captive in war and now insists on marrying her. Having entered Athens's strongly patriarchal environment, she prepares to fully become a part of it.

In the mirror universe of the fairy's forest, Oberon, the king, expects Titania, his wife and queen, to act upon his will. Her refusal to give up to him an Indian boy he desires for his retinue (because she promised his mortal mother to care for him) has caused not only a huge rift in the fairy's forest kingdom, but all sorts of weather problems amid human civilization. In the end, Oberon will use trickery—diverting Titiania with a love potion—to assert his patriarchal prerogative and gain the boy.

Helena adopts the subordinate female role in an abject, disturbing way with Demetrius, trailing him into the forest and insisting that he can strike her as his "spaniel" if she can only be near him. Her abjection has a transgressive edge, however,—she is refusing his insistence that he leave her alone and using love to fight back against the expectation of female obedience.

Hermia and Lysander are the pairing that most reject patriarchal values. The disobey male authority—both Theseus's and Egeus's—to run away to Lysander's aunt's (notably a woman) house outside of Athens to wed. This subversion of patriarchy sets much of the zany plot in motion, as does Titiana's willingness to stand up to Oberon for the sake of her dead friend.

In the end, everyone is sorted out into an appropriate gender role, restoring the harmony that was threatened by the midsummer's night frolics, but with some dilution of the zany anarchy that animated the play.

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Does A Midsummer Night’s Dream show submission to patriarchal rule as necessary for social harmony?

On the surface it might look like Shakespeare is supporting the idea that submission to patriarchy is necessary to social harmony.

Yes, Hipployta, who doesn't have much choice, has caved on the idea of wedding Theseus in a gracious way, and, likewise, order is seemingly restored in the fairy kingdom when Titania gives up the Indian boy to Oberon. Her capitulation, we can rest assured, will end the weather problems that are plaguing the human world.

But the more important message is that patriarchal order is restored when women are allowed to love the one they want: if patriarchs want order, they need to give women their own way.

Order in Athens is threatened when Hermia and Lysander defy Theseus's decree that Hermia marry Demetrius. Hermia and Lysander flee to the forest, en route to Lysander's aunt (notably a woman, who will help them defy patriarchy). Demetrius follows. Another representative of patriarchy, he is determined to ensure the rules prevail so that he can marry Hermia. However, his patriarchal desires are undermined not only by Hermia's complete disinterest in what he wants, but by Helena's unwanted pursuit. In this plot line, order only prevails after both women get their way, helped along by some magic.

A happy ending to the play ensues only after Theseus agrees (i.e., capitulates) to Hermia and Lysander's marriage and when a love potion helps Demetrius come to his senses and realize what Helena has known all along—that she knows best and is the woman for him.

Likewise, as long as Titania can be with the one she loves, she is willing to give Oberon what he wants. Her desire might have been manipulated by Oberon and the love object might be Bottom with an ass's head, but the wise Oberon knew when he gave her the potion that romantic love would be stronger than asserting his patriarchal dominion, which was clearly getting him nowhere.

One way of reading the play—consistent with Shakespeare's tendency across his oeuvre to show that women are smarter and more capable than Renaissance society gave them credit for—is to interpret it as Shakespeare's way of illustrating it is best for social harmony if women get what they want, especially in love. Do that, and they will allow patriarchal order to prevail. Don't, and trouble follows.

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