2006. Many writers use a country setting to establish values within a work of literature. For example, the country may be a place of virtue and peace or one of primitivism and ignorance. Choose a novel or play in which such a setting plays a significant role. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the country setting functions in the work as a whole.
Nature is said to be one thing that the human race will never conquer, and because of that nature can be one of the most frightening things to a human being. Shakespeare plays on the fear of the forest in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The forest setting of A Midsummer Night’s Dream adds to the fear featured in the play and solidifies the lack of control the human characters have over their actions.
Fear in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is closely related to woodland setting. The characters are safe until they enter the forest. This forces the audience to associate the woods with danger, and makes the forest seem suspicious. The unseen danger of the forest is supplemented by the choice of play that the actors put on: Pyramus and Thisby meet their deaths in a forest. They parallel Hermia and Lysander who also have forbidden love and run to the forest to escape society. Thus all of the events in the forest are overshadowed by the idea of fear.
Once the four lovers enter the forest it becomes very clear that they have little control over their own actions. The play opens with very clear boundaries in all of the lovers’ relationships, and all of those boundaries fall apart while in the woods. This shows that their preferences do not matter. Also, the fact that Oberon and Titania are completely aware of the lovers’ presence while the lovers are oblivious to the fairies’ highlights the superiority of the fairies. Because the fairies are able to take away the humans’ freewill, their superiority symbolizes the superiority of magic and fate.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is set in the forest for a reason: nature has often left humans’ powerless. The forest setting emphasizes that the characters have no power over their actions while in the dangerous woods.
I'm not entirely sure the forest setting of A Midsummer Night's Dream counts as a "country setting", so that may be an issue. Assuming that is is, however, the essay was a bit short. Two body paragraphs is not enough space to convey the depth that the prompt is looking for. Also, I thought there was a bit too much summary, especially in the third paragraph.
ReplyDeleteOverall it was a well-written, albeit short, essay; I'm not sure that it answers the prompt entirely, and it needs a bit more commentary on the author's meaning in the work.