Imagine your dad refuses you to do something that makes you happy, that you love for example swimming or any other hobby, well this also happens to one of the characters in this book who is not allowed to marry the love of her life while some of the other characters love but are not loved back. Read on to find out how this story went.
The story begins with a conversation between Egeus and Theseus where Egeus doesn’t want his daughter to marry Lysander but rather Demetrius. Hermia is brought to Theseus and is told that if she doesn’t listen to her father she will face punishment including death. Lysander comes up with a plan to run away with Hermia so that they can get married in another city. Some of the best men have been chosen to perform a Tragic Comedy for the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta. The story takes us to another set where the king and queen of the fairies Oberon and Titania are fighting over the stolen child. Since Titania has refused to a proper sit down, Oberon comes up with a plan to steal child but he needs juice from a love flower to be put on her eyes. He sends his trusted fairy Robin for the flower and once it is found, Oberon uses it on Titania. He had also ordered Robin some of the juice on an Athenian(Demetrius) but after his long search, he put it on Lysander who had lain down to rest with Hermia. The noise from Demetrius and Helena woke him up and that’s when he fell in love with Helena when he saw her and confessed it but Helena thought he was making fun of her. Hermia gets up confused because Lysander promised he would stay with her but is not there.
The men chosen for the play have another meeting and some changes and adjustments are made for the play. During the rehearsal, Bottom had a break and when it was done, people kept running away from him because Robin stuck a donkey head on his head but he didn’t know. Bottom resorted to singing and this woke up Titania who fell in love with him asking all her fairies to take care of him. Robin reported back to Oberon but found out he put the juice on the wrong Athenian, so they plan to put the love juice on Demetrius to fall in love with Helena. Two men are then left fighting for Helena and she still thinks it’s a joke. There is a lot of chaos between Hermia, Helena, Lysander and Demetrius where the two men want to fight to prove their love for Helena. The fight is sabotaged by Robin and since all four of them are tired they fall asleep to wait for morning but Robin doesn’t forget to put some of the juice on Lysander’s eyes to reverse what he did. After Bottom being pampered by Titania’s fairies, they fall asleep and Oberon comes to reverse what he did to Titania. Robin also removes the donkey head on Bottom’s head. As the morning comes, Demetrius, Lysander, Hermia and Helena are found by Theseus, Hippolyta and Egeus and it is the same day she has to make a decision. Demetrius narrates the story telling them about the weird dreams they all had but the don’t even believe the story only asking them to make the decision after the wedding. Bottom finally shows up after his fellow men look for him. Philostrate, the one incharge of the party entertainment is asked which plays are available, he states them all and Theseus decides on watching the play about Thisbe and Pyramus acted by the hardworking men. Theseus and Hippolyta keep expressing their opinions about about the play calling it silly. Everyone enjoyed the play and since the night was still young, fairies performed a song. The story ended happily.
One of the major differences we find is that Theseus was very rude in the movie compared to when you read the book. He kept noting down all the people who had talked back to him during the play and was going to punish them while in the book none of that happens. When Robin was to put the love juice on some of the characters he had to put them to sleep while in the movie the characters fell asleep on their own. Hippolyta was a prisoner of Theseus and when he died she was free of him and got to be with her true love Titania in the movie while in the book she was happily in love with Theseus. We also see that in the play Nick Bottom was turned into a real camel looking creature by Robin in the movie compared to the book where Robin only placed a donkey head on his head.
I personally prefer the book version of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream because it got me imagining things and how the different events took place. The events in the book seemed more realistic to me compared to the events in the movie. Reading the book, I found it more funnier than watching the movie. The characters were more relatable in the book compared to the movie.
