仲夏夜之梦 论文

Contradiction and Unity：Interpretations of Three Characters’ Dreams inA Midsummer Night's DreamⅠ.IntroductionWilliam Shakespeare (26 April 1564 –23 April 1616) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "The Bard"). His plays have been translated into every major living language, and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.A Midsummer Night's Dream is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare, suggested by "The Knight's Tale" from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. It portrays the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of amateur actors, their interactions with the Duke and Duchess of Athens, Theseus and Hippolyta, and with the fairies who inhabit a moonlit forest. The play is one of Shakespeare's most popular works for the stage and is widely performed across the world.A Midsummer Night’s Dream was probably written in 1595-96, and therefore belongs to Shakespeare’s early period as dramatist. This was his time of apprenticeship to the playwright’s craft, when he was experimenting in various dramatic forms, exploring among the many materials available to him, trying out new combinations of effects, making himself familiar with the tools of his craft, and perfecting his use of them. This is not to say that A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a crude or amateurish play. In certain respects it is imperfect: for example, some of characters are poorly drawn and do not always come fully to life. Yet when we take into account the manner in which the young dramatist has combined so effectively such a rich variety of materials—delightful stories, superb poetry, charming songs, moonlight and magic, rustics and fairies, aristocrats and common folk, humor, satire, and some quite serious observation on love and marriage—one can only marvel at the craftsmanship that has been able to weld it allinto such a balanced, controlled, and unified whole as A Midsummer Night’s Dream is.A Midsummer Night’s Dream has been researched from a lot of aspects by many dramatists both home and abroad. Someone focuses on its words, someone concerns its plots, and someone studies humanism it reflects. It is a famous comedy, and has a perfect ending. However, the course of true love never did run smooth. Contradictions are filled in the lovers’ behaviors and mentalities. Why? What is the source? What’s more, it is the most famous “dream”. Then, what lovers did in the “dream” is controlled by their consciousness or their subconsciousness? And is there any connection between them? Using the way of psychology will help us a lot, and there will be more details in the following discussion.This paper is going to study the interpretation of characters, namely Lysander, Hermia and Demetrius, to display the Contradiction and Unity of the play, also to illustrate Shakespeare’s view on love and practical significance of the drama.Ⅱ. Interpretations of Three C haracters’ DreamsIn order to understand the play, we should know what the inner connection between reality and illusion is; rational and irrational behaviors which hide behind the love conflict of two pairs of lovers? In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare described the lover’s visible but unavailable emotion by going deeply into people’s souls through their unconscious thoughts and behaviors, and showed the obscure, vague side of human nature. Jung’s theory may help here, he views the ego as one's sense of self and how we portray ourselves to the world. Part of Jung's theory is that all things can be viewed as paired opposites. And thus working in opposition to the ego, is the “counter ego”or what he referred to as the shadow. The shadow represents rejected aspects of yourself that you do not wish to acknowledge. It is considered an aspect of yourself which is somewhat more primitive, uncultured, and awkward. In Jung's view, dreams are the direct, natural expression of the current condition of the dreamer's mental world. Jung rejected Freud's claim that dreams intentionally disguise their meanings; rather, Jung believed that the nature of dreams is to present "a spontaneousself-portrayal, in symbolic form, of the actual situation in the unconscious" Jung claimed that dreams speak in a distinctive language of symbols, images, and metaphors, a language that is the unconscious mind's natural means of expression. We have trouble understanding dreams, Jung said, only because this symbolic language is so different from the Language of our waking consciousness.Dreams sometimes portray the dreamer's relation with the external world, that is, with the people, events, and activities of the dreamer's daily life. Jung called this the objective level of a dream's meaning. At other times, dreams portray the dreamer's inner world; the dream figures are personifications of thoughts and feelings within the dreamer's own psyche. This, Jung said, is the subjective level of a dream's meaning. Jung criticized Freud for acknowledging only the objective level; the true nature of dreams, Jung believed, is to portray both these levels of the dreamer's life.2.1 Interpretation of Lysander’s DreamJung, in general, felt the unconscious is driven by the process of "individuation," a drive toward wholeness and balance between the contrary forces of the psyche through the "transcendent function." Like the humanistic psychologists would argue, Jung felt that the unconscious is also a source of health and vitality rather than simply pathological forces. However, Jung also felt that the unconscious holds the potential for evil as well as good. Dreams, like the unconscious, had their own language. As representations of the unconscious, dream images have their own primacy and logic. Jung would argue that just as we do not doubt the importance of our conscious experience, then we ought not to second guess the value of our unconscious lives Lysander’s eccentric behaviors in the dream represent the underside of human nature, however, they are not merely the unconscious, and they are straightly connected with human being’s reason and mood. As Freud said, “dreams illustrate the ‘logic’ of the unconscious mind. The preconscious was described as a layer between conscious and unconscious thought; its contents could be accessed with a little effort.” One key factor in the operation of the unconscious is “repression.”Freud believed that many people“repress”painful memories deep into their unconscious mind. Although Freud later attempted to find patterns of repression among his patients in order to derive a general model of the mind, he also observed that repression varies among individual patients. Freud also argued that the act of repression did not take place within a person's consciousness. Thus, people are unaware of the fact that they have buried memories or traumatic experiences. These crazy and weird behaviors just show the wishes without scruple which are repressed in the conscious world. Dreams are not attempts to conceal our true feelings from the waking mind, but rather they are a window to our unconscious. They serve to guide the waking self to achieve wholeness. Dreams offer a solution to a problem we are facing in our waking life. Lysander and Hermia break down shackles and pursue real love that they want most. So it seems unbelievable that Lysander desert Hermia in the dream. But the dialogue between them in act Ⅱ, sceneⅡmight be helpful.LYSANDERFair love, you faint with wandering in the wood;And to speak troth, I have forgot our way:We'll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good,And tarry for the comfort of the day.One turf shall serve as pillow for us both;One heart, one bed, two bosoms and one troth.O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence!Love takes the meaning in love's conference.I mean, that my heart unto yours is knitSo that but one heart we can make of it;Two bosoms interchained with an oath;So then two bosoms and a single troth.Then by your side no bed-room me deny;For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.HERMIABe it so, Lysander: find you out a bed;For I upon this bank will rest my headNay, good Lysander; for my sake, my dear,Lie further off yet, do not lie so near.Lysander riddles very prettily:Now much beshrew my manners and my pride,If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied.But, gentle friend, for love and courtesyLie further off; in human modesty,Such separation as may well be saidBecomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid,So far be distant; and, good night, sweet friend:Thy love ne'er alter till thy sweet life end!As a factor of emotion conflict, the dialogue got in Lysander’s unconscious world, consequently, his eagerness to love is repressed. Moreover, because of the influence of other factors, for example, Helena’s virtue, it is apt to form fierce contrast between his conscious and unconscious behaviors. Lysander says “Conte nt with Hermia! No; I do repent the tedious minutes I with her have spent. Not Hermia but Helena I love”So we can conclude that Lysander’s behavior s in one side show his love to Hermia being visible but unavailable, in other side represent another side of his human nature.2.2 Interpretation of Demetrius’ DreamJung stated that dreams serve two functions. One function is to compensate for imbalances in the dreamer's psyche. Dreams bring forth unconscious contents that consciousness has ignored, depreciated, or actively repressed. For example, if a person is overly intellectual, his or her dreams will work to balance this conscious excess by bringing forth images of the psyche's more emotion-oriented contents. According to Jung, when the dreamer recognizes and accepts these unconscious contents, greaterpsychological balance is achieved. The second function of dreams is to provide prospective images of the future. Jung agreed with Freud that dreams may look backward to past experiences, but he argued that dreams also look forward to anticipate what the dreamer's future developments may be. Jung did not mean that dreams predict the future, only that dreams can suggest what might happen, what possibilities the future might hold. Ultimately, Jung believed that dreams function to promote the most important developmental. Process or human life, namely, the uniting of consciousness and the unconscious in a healthy, harmonious state of wholeness. Jung called this process individuation, the “complete actualization of t he whole human being”Compared with Lysander’s, the conflict and shift of Demetrius’ emotion are more mysterious. Demetrius is extremely disgusted with Helena in reality. However, he adores her in a flash in dream. Such bewildering and odd-looking behavior seemed to be a dramatic plot arranged casually by the author in order to make comedy effects. Actually, if we analyze each plot carefully, we will find that those confusing activities sounded reasonable because of their inner connections. In actⅠ, sceneⅠ, we know that Demetrius used to love Helena and Helena had been loving him. When D’s love is shifted to Hermia, his past love, as a kind of the unconscious, exists beyond the conscious area, and is rejected by the conscious behavior. Similarly, his enduring Hermia’s refusal is a kind of the unconscious and was repressed by conscious activities as well. At that crazy night, Demetrius pursued Hermia but got no end with his energy exhausted. Before he dreamed, a mixture of craziness, pain, disappointment, exhaustion formed his conscious attitude. Lost conscious control in dreams, the constrained unconscious showed its real mood—the pain of losing love.Lysander, keep thy Hermia: I will none:If e’er I loved her, all that love is gone.My heart to her but as guest-wise sojourn’d,And nom to Helena is it home reture’d, there to remain.Such dialogue, in fact, is based on his love to Helena. In fancy, this flow of feelingpour out instead of his hidden conscious. It is also compensation relation. However, it needs a psychological process where the thoughts and symbols in the dream can be transformed to concepts of certain things, in other words, the process “not accepted by the conscious” to “accepted by the conscious”. Therefore, a fixed and clear concept would be formed from what used to be loose and vague.In the dream, Demetrius’ realistic emotion to Helena just stayed on the basis of farcical concepts and could not decide the realistic behavior in future. Only after waking up, Demetrius might gradually accept t he “dream” thoughts and form “day” concepts then shift his love to Helena at last. As a result, the transform from “love in dream” to “get together in reality” between Demetrius and Helena was too dramatic to be trusted and gave people the supernatural feelings to people. That was because; it was shallow to say that D’s shift process showed the mood in dream. But the key plot—Shakespeare did not remove the magic power from Demetrius—can not be ignored. Quite different from Lysander’s situation, Demetrius an d Helen a got together in the “dream” mood. That was saying, the reality is not such as it seems. Shakespeare’s arrangement indicated the position to which D’s emotion would develop and added the glamour of art to the play. It would be suspense if their loves come true. Looked from another angle, their comedy ending seemed dim and obscure. Maybe that was the space for readers to think. The more we carefully analyze each plot. The more we will feel its being applied cogently.2.3 Interpretation of Hermia’s DreamHolland is an American educator and critic who employs a Freudian psychoanalytic approach to literature and emphasizes the subjective nature of our response to literature. He considers the dream as the key point in understanding the whole play. And his main theory is “identity” and “substitute”. He links the drama with the problems happen in the reality more than focuses just on the drama itself.Hermia is the key character to the play. And her dream is the most famous dream in Shakespeare’s drama. At the beginning, Hermia wakes in the forest and says:HERMIAHelp me, Lysander, help me! do thy bestTo pluck this crawling serpent from my breast!Ay me, for pity! what a dream was here!Lysander, look how I do quake with fear:Methought a serpent eat my heart away,And you sat smiling at his cruel pray.Lysander! what, removed? Lysander! lord!What, out of hearing? gone? no sound, no word?Alack, where are you speak, an if you hear;Speak, of all loves! I swoon almost with fear.No? then I well perceive you all not nighEither death or you I'll find immediately.We can interpretate it from two different angles, the first is treating Hermia as a patient. “Identity theory” has been the central theory of neo-psychoanalysis since 1970s. and Hermia’s dream suggests her identity-- liking to make” self-objects”, and find something to substitute for original possibility, in order to amend objects and make them more fit for her own identity. The subject of Hermia’s dream is “the ways of protecting, denying and distorting”. These are fundamental features of her personality and are showed not only when she is awake, but when she is in dream.The second kind of interpretation is to analyze Hermia’s dream in the process of whole circumstance and figure’s mentality. There is a question of “separation and combination” in both Hermia’s dream and the drama. Lover’s separation is filled in the beginning of the drama. Not only four Athenians, but Theseus and Hippolyta and Oberon and Titania. The method of “substitute”does not solve her contraction. The question of “whether separation or combination”still exist. The serpent in Hermia’s dream symbolized lover’s cruelty, abandonment and unconcern. Both two kinds of interpretations reflect this comedy’s subject: lovers’ cute but cruel contradictory moodand their separation affairs, though analyzed from different angles.However, the interpretation of Hermia’s dream may be questioned by readers. A Midsummer Night's Dream belongs to Shakespeare’s early comedies and is the first drama where wedding ceremony exists. Therefore, it is considered as an entertainment drama. Plenty of magic and supernatural things suggest that the author play a game with his great imagination. The interpretation is quite different from ones held by other critics. In fact, Holland connect reality problems with his theory, which is an argument about modern relations and “sex revolution”. There are two problems faced by the whole human beings: Can we divide sex with love? How can we build trust when encountering people who we do not completely trust? In other words, he concerns more social problems than the drama itself. The Shakespearean dramas are also strongly associated with humanism.Ⅲ. ConclusionOn the basis of the above discussion, we may come to the conclusion that the contrast between reason and love, reality and fantasy, in fact, are also unified. There are so many conflicts between what lovers did in the reality and the “dream” that we even do not know who they are. As a matter of fact, the behaviors that seem unreal are rational, and what they did may also happen in us. Similarly we behave quite differently in our daydreams. The conscious and the unconscious are two worlds of our own; we may look for what we lose in the livelihood in the area deep in our hearts with the aim of keeping a balance. The atmosphere of moonlight and flowers provides the characters with the condition and helps us have a clear and comprehensive look about why the plots are so strange. We can say that the road which is full of contradiction comes to the unity at last. Thus the fairy world of the wood and its dream vistas and its moonlight are in themselves important unifying and harmonizing elements in the play. Shakespeare’s thoughts and all three psychologists’ theory are still extremely important when we are facing kinds of moral and practical problems in our life.References:[1] Charton, H. Shakespearean Comedy. London：Muthuen&Co.Ltd, 1945.[2] Green, Douglas.Preposterous Pleasures, Queer Theories and A MidsummerNight's Dream. London：Cambridge University Press, 1931.[3] Holland, Norman N. "Hermia's Dream." 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