Wednesday, June 13, 2018

What are some examples of foreshadowing used in Act 3 of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream?

At the beginning of Act III, Quince, Snug, Bottom, Flute, Snout and Starveling enter the wood to rehearse the play they want to perform for the duke. The first thing they do upon entering the wood is argue about imagery versus veracity:

BOTTOM: Not a whit: I have a device to make all well.Write me a prologue; and let the prologue seem tosay, we will do no harm with our swords, and thatPyramus is not killed indeed; and, for the morebetter assurance, tell them that I, Pyramus, am notPyramus, but Bottom the weaver: this will put themout of fear.

This comment, and others like them, foreshadow the following action, where, for most of the characters, reality and their perceptions are completely unrelated. The play takes on outrageous tones as the men all dress up in character, even using a man’s body and held-out arms to imitate a wall. The noise that they make romping through the woods wakens the fairy queen, Titania, who lays eyes upon and finds herself enamored with the hapless Bottom. Not only is her infatuation fake, she is not even in love with the real Bottom; the man she perceives and loves sports the head of an ass.
The four lovers come on stage, along with Oberon and Puck, and things become a huge tangle of misplaced perceptions. Thanks to the love potion, Lysander and Demetrius both end up enamored with Helena, leaving Hermia out in the cold. Helena and Hermia both feel betrayed by their best friend, with Hermia believing that her friend stole her lover, and Helena believing that her friend has made her the butt of a cruel practical joke. The farce ends with Puck attempting to fix his mistakes by pretending to be both Demetrius and Lysander. He leads the two men on a merry chase through the woods, both of them intent on finding a good spot to beat on each other. One could say that this particular chase was foreshadowed by the clowns running and romping earlier through that same clearing
The above quote also foreshadows the upcoming resolution to all this misperception. By the end of Act III, Puck is successful in getting everyone back to their natural state, with the exception of Demetrius who remains spelled as Puck had originally intended. Oberon finds his queen early in Act IV and succeeds in releasing her from her delusions. Bottom is, eventually, returned to his fellows. Everyone who had been in the woods the night before remembers their adventures as if in dream. And so, as Bottom predicts way back in Act III, in the end no harm is done.

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