Need Help With Shakespeare Essay

Student in first year of English Literature course here. I'm having trouble with an essay and before I go any further, yes this is a shameless cry for help, but if any of you are kind enough to give me a hand here, I'd appreciate it greatly.

I have an essay due in about Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. The main idea is to write about how Shakespeare presents the ending of it as a harmonious contrast to the chaotic 'green world' at the center. After doing one draft, I was told to write less about what happens in the story and more about how it is presented and the methods Shakespeare used, with more quotes to prove that.

There's my problem. I have no idea how to go about doing that and it's too late to ask my tutor about it, which is why I'm here. You don't have to do the entire essay for me, and I'm certainly not asking that. I'm just asking for tips or advice, just a pointer to get me started even, because as of right now I don't have a single point to make and don't know how to go about formulating one.

Start with determining what SHakespeare said about that. If you don't have an opinion about SHakespeare's opnion on the matter, then develop one, even if you will be wrong, you will have something to write about. What type of essay is it? If you are suppose to develop a thesis essay, then dream up a statement of your thesis in regard to the subject.

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Originally Posted by PeterL

Start with determining what SHakespeare said about that. If you don't have an opinion about SHakespeare's opnion on the matter, then develop one, even if you will be wrong, you will have something to write about. What type of essay is it? If you are suppose to develop a thesis essay, then dream up a statement of your thesis in regard to the subject.

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It's an essay in which I have to write about how far he presented the ending of the play as a contrast to the middle. Thanks for the advice.

This is always a difficult task for first time English Lit. students. How I try to teach this to undergraduates is usually with what I call a question method.

The first thing you have to be sure of is that you have a thesis. Your topic is the contrast between the middle sections/beginning with the ending. You've been given a pretty strong topic that leads naturally to a thesis about how, or why, or to what effect this contrast exists. In all likelihood, if you are using plot heavily throughout your essay what you are doing is probably presenting a paper that catalogs the way the middle contrasts with the ending. This makes for a poor paper because most readers can readily apprehend that the ending of the play is harmonius and the middle chaotic. Instead, you need to delve deeper and try to answer a question about how this contrast is used to achieve something or give some particular impression, or to go deeper into the implications of the obvious contrast in the play. What subtleties does the language imply about this contrast, and what can this tell us about how we might read the play.

Now as to things that could get you started, I'd say start thinking about the way Oberon speaks of his plans for the four lovers and for Titania. Look at how Oberon presents himself and characterizes his own actions (carried out by Robin). Ask yourself what does harmony or chaos mean in this play. What differentiates the chaotic woods from the harmonious Athens?

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Originally Posted by Hypermusic

Student in first year of English Literature course here. I'm having trouble with an essay and before I go any further, yes this is a shameless cry for help, but if any of you are kind enough to give me a hand here, I'd appreciate it greatly.

I have an essay due in about Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. The main idea is to write about how Shakespeare presents the ending of it as a harmonious contrast to the chaotic 'green world' at the center. After doing one draft, I was told to write less about what happens in the story and more about how it is presented and the methods Shakespeare used, with more quotes to prove that.

There's my problem. I have no idea how to go about doing that and it's too late to ask my tutor about it, which is why I'm here. You don't have to do the entire essay for me, and I'm certainly not asking that. I'm just asking for tips or advice, just a pointer to get me started even, because as of right now I don't have a single point to make and don't know how to go about formulating one.

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Is this a university level course? They teach you from GCSE age not to simply re-tell the story; that's a basic essay mistake.

Leaving that aside, you need to do some secondary reading to get the knack of how to study literature analytically. Instead of getting carried away by the story, look at the play as something the playwright has constructed, in the way that a cartwright constructs.

One way to help you get started is to compare the opening balance with the closing balance- i.e., the beginning with the end. How are things at the start of the play? We're in a court- what things does that conjure up for you? We're looking at characters that are from a higher class and we get an insight into how the state is ruled. One would expect a court to be strong and harmonious but it's falling apart. If you do not have expectations of what things might mean in real life, you'll certainly have expectations from what you know of reading books. Shakespeare knows that people have expectations of how things are or how things should be so he has a choice- he can either confirm our expectations or defy them.

Now, as your essay question says, there are two worlds in the play: the court, run by Athenians, and the forest, ran by the fairies. For a writer to choose more than one world, it suggests that there is something about this other world that contrasts with the first world. Writers like to contrast and compare; by contrasting and comparing two things, it enhances the qualities in each one. For example, imagine this angelic character. If you put him next to a devilish character, his angelic quality will be even more obvious because we see how it differs. Because we have two couples ruling two different words, it seems reasonable to expect that Shakespeare wants us to compare the two.

However, writers also like similarities, particularly when they aren't obvious. Oberon and Titania are a mirror image of Theseus and Hippolyta, even though the two couples are from different worlds. So at the same time as we see their differences, we also see their similarities. Imagine the play as being like a scale, with the balance tipping to different sides depending on the state of the play. Because your question is about harmony versus chaos, those can be the two balances. As you read the play, you'll notice that there are moments where there's an obvious tip. This could be a plot point but it could also be a speech. These are key scenes or moments in the play- something that if you cut it from the play, the play would suffer. Trust your instinct on this one. A suggestion that a speech may be important is if it is quite a long one. It could be Shakespeare just rambling on but he could also be telling us something important. Speeches you could look at may be Theseus' opening speech, Titania's speech about how nature is crumbling because of her and Oberon's argument, or the speech about Helena and Hermia's friendship. It's common sense really- nobody wants to hear long speeches of rambling. It's not entertaining and that's the playwright's job.

As well as studying the opening and closing balance, the two worlds and long speeches, look at the first time each character is introduced. What is your impression of that character? People form impressions of a person very quickly from what they say and how they talk to others. If you don't have any thoughts about Theseus when he first starts talking, at what point in the speech do you think "Ah, I know what type of guy he is"? That line in which you realise who he is will be the quote that you use; what you have discovered about him is your point.

There isn't some big mystical secret about analysing literature. Ultimately it's a question of common sense.

Orphan Pip and Kelby Lake offer some really sound advice. Reading a couple of secondary sources will not only give you a sense of how to write a secondary essay, but one of the critics might spark something in you that intrigues you about the play.

How Shakespeare presents it: think about whether he wants to take the bulk of the play at face value or, more likely (in my increasingly humble opinion) to consider it just as the title suggests -- a dream. The characters and plot are indeed pure fantasy, but what is the play trying to tell us foolish mortals? So you could contrast the fantasy world of the faeries with that of the "real" world, as it is depicted in A Midsummer Night's Dream.This play is interesting to me in that it presages our self-referential postmodern sensibilities.

Consider the ending of the play (Act V, Sc. 1) particularly the "Prologue" to the play-within-a -play:

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If we offend, it is with our goodwill.
That you should think, we come not to offend,
But with goodwill. To show our simple skill,
that is the true beginning of our end.
Consider then we come but in despite.
We do not come, as minding to content you,
Our true intent is. All for your delight,
We are not here. That you should here repent you,
The actors are at h and, and, by their show,
You shall know all, that you are like to know."

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Incidents of "breaking down the fourth walll" follow, including a talking wall!

So perhaps you could show how Shakespeare presents the seemingly opposing elements: illusion v. reality, truth v. deception, fantastic creatures v. mortals, the real world v. the dream world.

PS-- Whatever point(s) you make in the essay, don't forget to back up your thesis with evidence from the text or citations from your secondary sources.

Welcome to the world of over-analyzing Shakespeare. Midsummer Night's Dream is, at its core, a romantic comedy/fantasy with nothing romantic, nothing funny, and no sense of the fantastic. Make some stuff up and call it a day; after all, that's what the Bard did.

Nothing funny? Must have been a different dream I saw.

Look at that first scene with Theseus and Hypolita and ... Hermia's father - If I remember right there language and rhyme scheme is different to that used in much of the green world scenes. And that shows the order / disorder thing.