THEME:
Definition: A theme is the central idea or ideas explored by a literary work.
Theme is not the message of a work, but instead are recurring elements that
work through the plot, characters and imagery in a literary work.
A work of literature may have more than one theme. Hamlet, for instance,
deals with the themes of death, revenge, and action, to name a few. King Lear's
themes include justice, reconciliation, madness, and betrayal.
The main themes of A Midsummer Night’s Dream are:
• Love and Marriage
• Obedience
• Dreams and Imagination
• The Moon – madness and chastity
There are areas where these overlap.
SETTING THE THEMES
The beginning of a play – much like the beginning of any story, novel or film – has to fulfil a
number of functions. First and foremost it must, of course, grab the attention of the
audience. Usually, the main characters are presented at the beginning, or at least near the
beginning. Main themes are also almost always introduced in the opening scene.
With its three different groups of characters who inhabit three different worlds, A
Midsummer Night’s Dream obviously cannot present all of the main characters in its
opening scene – in fact it only presents one group of characters: the Athenian court.
However, it does introduce a number of the main themes that will concern all the groups:
the theme of love and marriage, which is equally a theme of the fairy realm (with Oberon
and Titania’s quarrel) and of the Mechanicals (through their play of Pyramus and Thisbe).
Pyramus and Thisbe
Retelling by Edwand Rivers
As told by Ovid. This story is similar to
Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
It takes place in ancient Babylon, where these
two children grew up in a one-room house that
was connected to the other. Over the years, they
fell in love with each other, but could only talk
through a hole in their wall because their
parents refused them to see each other.
Finally, Pyramus got fed up with his parents and
so did Thisbe. They decided to run off one night
and elope. Pyramus gave Thisbe the location of
the place they would meet, and they agreed.
Thisbe was the first to arrive at the first
Mulberry bush outside of the city, but as she was waiting, a lioness walked by with her jaws
covered in blood from a previous kill that day. Thisbe, frightened at her sight, ran non-stop
to the nearest cave. Soon after, Pyramus walked by and saw a cloak, his love gift to her,
covered in blood and torn to pieces with the footprints of the lioness left behind. He
immediately thought that his only love had been killed by a hungry lion, and unsheathed his
sword (her love gift to him), letting the cold, hard steel pierce his broken heart. Thisbe,
bringing courage to her heart, ran back and found her only love lying on the ground next to
the blood-covered Mulberry bush with his sword impaling his chest.
She gasped in horror as she asked the still breathing Pyramus what happened. Barely able to
stay awake, he told her what happened and she cried in sorrow. She took Pyramus' bloodstained sword and asked him to wait for her while she brought the blade into her own soft
flesh. Thus they died together, in love and peace.
This is why the berries on the Mulberry bush are red, instead of their original white, in
commemoration of the two young lovers and their great sacrifice.
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Pyramus and Thisbe - Encyclopedia Mythica