MM Oct 29

Dr. Mathur began class by showing the class a movie clip form A Midsummer’s Night Dream in which the men’s affections shifts from Hermia to Helena, and the rivalry between Lysander and Demetrius becomes quite apparent (3:2:140 in the book). Afterwards, we spoke about how love and desire could be gendered. We discussed what the scene revealed about the nature of love and desire in the play, and took note of the changes experienced by Lysander and Demetrius on the one hand, and those experienced by Hermia and Helena on the other when they enter the woods. Some of the students noted how there was a kind of role reversal between the males and females- Hermia became aggressive and tried to physically attack Helena, while Lysander and Demetrius were far more calm and collected throughout the scene; this demonstrated an inversion of the gender roles in the play. Women also seem to remain faithful to the original objects of their affection compared to the men who seem to be more easily swayed. The females also, however, seemed to let the men get in the way of their friendship with each other which seemed to be more and more obvious as the scene went on. Following the clip, our talk shifted back to where we were in the play which continued with Lysander receiving an antidote which allowed him to love Hermia again; Demetrius, however did not receive an antidote which keeps him under the spell that explains his continuing love for Helena. We spoke about how Helena seems to forever get the short end of the stick; though the object of her affection ends up loving her, it is only under false pretenses. For our discussion, we conferred about the themes of sleep, dreams, and imagination and how these themes are central to the play. In 4:1:199-205, the lovers believe that the experiences of the woods have been a dream simply because they have trouble imagining that such strange events would occur and that they would act in such odd behaviors. We also discussed the key differences between the woods (the representation of dreams) and the city or Athens (which represents reality). The woods, or dream-scape, allows for freedom, imagination, role reversal, subconscious desires, nightmares, and solutions whereas the city, or reality allows for assigned roles, laws and a hierarchal social order. We ended class by watching another scene from the movie version where the play, Pyramus and Thisbe is performed which successfully provided comic relief for the play.

-Gabriella Pastor