ENG2800 Final Exam - Grade: A PDF

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Sophia Liu ENG2800 Professor Jeanne Stauffer-Merle 21 May 2019 Final Exam 1) Bottom’s transformation is a symbol that emphasizes the blindness of love in the play. As Bottom transforms into an ass, he is still desired by Titania, who has Oberon’s love potion’s effects still raging inside her. Titania finds herself in love with a lower class man despite his transformation. In Act III, Scene II, it is stated that "Titania waked and straightway loved an ass". This statement can be applicable to all characters throughout the story, as love being blind is a constant theme that is seen many times. Though Titania and Bottom are complete opposites in terms of gracefulness and social class, she cannot help but fawn over a ‘monster’s’ qualities. 2) Puck is an important character in the play. He can be seen as the catalyst for many actions and statements the characters ensue and allow for character as well as story development. He is Oberon’s jester and follows the personality of a jester, causing and enjoying mischief and playing tricks. Theseus, the duke of Athens, clearly follows the idea of patriarchy, which is the concept of believing men should be in charge of governance, property, and social privilege. Theseus has Philostrate, the man in charge of entertainment at Theseus’s gatherings and social events, ensuring that Theseus and his guests are entertained, which is in line with Puck’s job, to entertain. 3) 4) Within Tao’s poems you can find many different types of paradoxes for example, in his poem Ten he states, “Working yet not taking credit, leading yet not dominating”. He is talking about the general ethic human beings should have just because they should without reasoning to it. He explains by asking questions about how you can accomplish something without doing a certain thing. He emphasizes at the end by stating can you really work without taking credit, or will you feel the need to take the credit for it because you for some reason feel the need to because at the end of the day you did do the work for it or can you simply lead a group of people without “dominating” this group of people. What is the line between the two, or can you simply do both. This leads me to think about, can you really love someone without loving yourself because at that point do you as a person understand what love is? The definition you have of love may not be the same as another person. So can you really love someone without knowing what love is? While reading A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare, there weren’t too many paradoxes but the ones that were there can make one wonder what is love in this play. After the fairies in the play started to work their magic on the characters, the idea of love starts to get a little fuzzy. Because of the fairies, Helena’s love for Demetrius eventually made him hate her and ironically Hermia’s hatred for him made him fall in love with Hermia. The characters do not know what love is themselves because of the fairies but they do think they actually love that person. How can they love someone they hate but hate those who love them? It is so ironic and it ties back to what Tao states, can you really do something without actually doing it. 5) 6) 7) Countless times throughout the story, A Midsummer Night’s Dream suggests that

the world is a chaotic and irrational place. The idea of love being blind, where a woman of royal descent falls in love with a man turned into an ass, extreme betrayals and changing perspectives once the sun falls and moon rises, and how people only enjoy themselves through the mischief and grief of others. A significant quote said by Lysander states, “The jaws of darkness do devour it up. So quick bright things come to confusion” (Act I, Scene I). This quote gives the readers a ‘heads-up’ as to how quickly emotions can dissipate. If two people were to fall in love: war, sickness, or death would ensue. If happiness was granted, it would be stripped from someone twice as fast. This all shows how cruel and chaotic the world may be. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, though chaos follows every character, it is important to notice the rebellious actions that most characters ensued. The audience reads instances of characters acting on impulse barring forethought on such actions. Egeus, Hermia’s father, chooses her ‘acceptable’ mate to marry his daughter on the basis of social, political, and economical factors. If Hermia had not fallen in love with Lysander and vice versa, the story would turn linear. However, they break tradition and flee Athens to be with each other. In Act III, Scene I, it states, “And yet,to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays”. This can be seen as a way of people controlling their fate, breaking loose from their bindings and care little for the rules of society, especially rules in such a patriarchal standard. Freedom is one of the most precious human rights, and it is given that one would do what it takes to obtain such freedom, showing how some character’s actions are rational and with reason. William Shakespeare believes that we exist in a world that is irrational, yet rational. Chaotic, yet peaceful. The proposal of both worlds may seem contradictory and outrageous when juxtaposed, but it cannot be an inch closer to the truth. We can take the Prohibition Act of 1920 in the United States, which most symbolically banned alcohol. On paper, it may have seemed rational, to ban a substance that causes crime and psychoactive effects, but in turn, created the biggest demand for alcohol known in that time era. The rules placed in Athens’ society, to some characters, played one role: to be rebelled against. Though there is reasoning behind the irrationality of our world, it is the tipping balance that prevents our world from becoming dystopian, and yet is the stopping power of creating a utopian world....