Midsummer Night's Dream ACT II Scene i HANDOUT
Miss Simison
29 January 2007
Handout II

The clandestine meeting in the woods……..
As you all probably recall, the Duke’s wood is the designated meeting spot for the characters from the two preceding scenes. We finally meet Puck (Robin Goodfellow), when he and a fairy enter the scene. We learn from Puck that Oberon (King of Fairies) is angry at Titania (his queen). Why? She has stolen an Indian boy and Oberon wants the child for his own. Because Titania won’t give the boy up, she and the King get in the biggest fights every time they see each other and scare the elves into hiding in acorn cups:
“But they do square (quarrel), that all their elves for fear
Creep into acorn cups and hid them there.” (lines 30-31)

The King and Queen end up meeting by accident and greet each other as “proud Titania” and “jealous Oberon.” This is important because in just a few lines we learn their identities and how they feel about each other:
∑ Titania accuses Oberon of coming to for the wedding only because Hilppolyta is a former girlfriend.
∑ Oberon responds with saying Titania is in love with Theseus.
∑ Important: Titania has foresworn Oberon’s bed and company:
“What, jealous Oberon! Fairies skip hence,
I have foresworn his bed and company.” (lines 61-62)
Once again, the course of love is running less than smoothly, a theme we are already familiar with. This relates back to the first scene of the play:
* Hermia might have to foreswear forever what Titania chooses to give up
* Helena has already had to do so against her will

Ah, Cupid: Of course he has to play a part in this! HE tried to shoot and arrow and it missed its target, hitting a flower instead:
“Yet mark’d I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower,
Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound,
And maidens call it love-in-idleness.” (lines 165-168)

Oberon sends Puck out to get the flower because the juice from it, when put on the sleeping eyelids of a man or woman, will cause the person to fall madly in love with the very first live creature that is seen when they wake up.

We then learn in a soliloquy that Oberon intends to put the juice on Titania’s eyelids in hopes that she will be distracted by whatever it is she sees when she wakes up. He will take that opportunity to steal the Indian boy from her.

Oberon then hears two people coming and makes himself invisible……….it’s Demetrius and Helena!
Helena is being really annoying and Demetrius just wants to be left alone! He’s looking for Hermia and Lysander….remember they are eloping! After they leave, Oberon sends Puck off with the flower to Titiania, but tells him to look for Lysander and Helena as well, and to use some juice on Demetrius.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch CHANGE: Such a focus on change!
1. Quarrel between Oberon and Titania is over a changeling
2. The cause and result of the quarrel concerns change
3. The solution to the quarrel is possible because of a change in a flower
4. The power of the changed flower is to transform (change) love-sight

Puck: He is the jester to the king and is one of, if not the most, memorable character of MND. From the fairy, we learn that Puck is responsible for all of the following and more:
1. Frightening village maidens
2. Skimming milk so it wont churn
3. Taking the kick out of liquor
4. Misleading people who travel at night
5. For those who treat him well, doing work and bringing luck
WHAT A RASCAL!
For years, Puck was featured at the top of many Sunday comics, with the banner "What fools these mortals be."
Fairies!!! The fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream are Shakespeare’s invention. There had been fairies in English folklore before, but Shakespeare’s differ in several important respects:
1. They are tiny! Miniscule, tiny, itsy bitsy!
2. They are associated with flowers
3. They are caring, compassionate, and generous
It is these fairies that have remained in the public’s imagination ever since the first production of MND.
MND inspired four hundred years of stories and pictures of tiny, butterfly-winged people living in the woods. Walt Disney's fairies are their descendants.