In Act V of A Midsummer Night's Dream, I thought that the details having to do with class structure seemed interesting. When the artisans put on their performance for the upper class, it seemed like the upper class took pity on them in a belittling fashion. The upper class didn't expect the lower class to be anything more than what they were. They saw them almost like children who were not capable of achieving certain things. Hippolyta even says, “Indeed, he hath played on this prologue like a child on a recorder...” in lines 122-123. The artisans are neither insulting due to their terrible performance, nor are they thought of as people who might benefit from an education in order to give a better performance in the future. Instead, they are laughed at or thought of as cute because they might now know any better. Everyone seems to be strictly bound to one level of the class structure with barely any room to change one's rank in society. The upper class maintains a certain amount of distance between themselves and the lower class, as well as a level of control by being more educated. In a similar way, the fairies maintain a certain amount of distance from the humans and a certain amount of control over their lives by having a distinct knowledge of love potions and magical powers that they feel completely fine about using on the humans without their knowledge.
I thought it was comical and interesting that in the Epilogue, Puck casually glosses over all of the ways in which the fairies may have truly interrupted and abused the lives of the humans by expressing a kind/politically correct apology, in a very professional or cocksure fashion, to anyone who may have been offended by the play. This just seems so hilarious! While I absolutely loved the fairies, it's interesting to see how issues of class were used for comedic purposes and what the characters got away with!
2 comments:
I absolutely agree with this post. Not once does any member of the bourgeoisie wholeheartedly accept the artisans as genuine actors. Of course, they were never meant to be seen as serious thespians in the first place. However, it is their placement on the ladder of society that condemns them first, their novice-level acting later.
In regards to the fairies, does that mean that the fairies exist on a higher plain compared to human beings? Or are the fairies below human beings, which allows them to sneakily invade their lives?
I'd be interested in hearing more about the way in which Puck/Robin seems to "cover over" the class issues in his Epilogue--a really fascinating point!
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