Appearances Versus Reality in "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" and "Twelfth Night" by Shakespeare (◄Return to Page 1 of 2)

Other essays and articles in the Literature Archives related to this topic include : The Role of Disguises in As You Like It and A Midsummer Night's Dream •  The Significance of the Play Within a Play Structure of "A Midsummer Night's Dream"    •     Perceptions of Race in Othello by Shakespeare   •    Renaissance Ideas as Reflected in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing    •    Prejudice in Shakespeare’s Othello and The Merchant of Venice   •     Disguises and Reality in Shakespeare's  Twelfth Night

Despite his feeling that this love what just a dream, Bottom took the cues from his new lover’s attentions on him, which became more of a disguise than the ass’ head that had been magically placed upon his shoulders. Even his language changes as he shifts into the role (much as Rosalind easily shifted into her role as a man). The usually uneducated speech of Bottom shifts into in one of the important quotes from "A Midsummer Night's Dream", “But pray you, don’t let any of your people stir me: I have an exposition of sleep come upon me” (IV.i.122). He misuses the meaning of words as usual, but the point is that he has grown more self-satisfied and comfortable in the disguise placed upon him physically (but unknowingly) as well as by the cues of others. Although the influence of magic is the defining difference of the tensions between reality and appearances, Malvolio in "Twelfth Night" is very much like Bottom. Both men have enormous egos that allow them to look only at the outward appearances rather than into the deeper truth or reality of their strikingly similar situation. Both of them assume that a woman that is out of their league (particularly in terms of class) is in love with them because of a deception, yet neither seem willing to look past the appearances to gain an understanding.

Interestingly, like the character of Bottom in Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream”, Malvolio grows into the role of the love object (which can be seen as a disguise of sorts) and wears the yellow stockings because he has been misled. His behavior echoes the words of Orsino, who laments, “So full of shapes is fancy / That it alone is high fantastical” (I.i.14-15). In this line, Orsino is stating that “fancy” or romantic love is fantastical and not associated with reality. Whether it is Malvolio acting as a fool for love or Orsino who wishes only to lay about all day thinking about his Olivia in the beginning, the two themes are clear—love itself is the ultimate form appearances trumping reality and appearances, when taken too lightly, begin dictating reality.

The conclusion of “Twelfth Night” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” reveals how they are extremely similar in terms of the theme of appearances versus reality. They both end happily, even though poor Malvolio in "Twelfth Night" may never recover, and the reversal that causes the happy conclusion is that appearances and reality have been reconciled. Even still, there is the remaining sense that there are leftover issues as a result of the paradoxes that plague both texts.  To highlight the point about the paradoxes concerning fantasy versus reality in "A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Twelfth Night”, one must recognize that even though the gender confusion in "Twelfth Night"  has been cleared up, there are still remaining “side effects” from the initial problems of appearances versus reality.

During his last few lines Orsino states to Viola in one of the important quotes from “Twelfth Night” by William Shakespeare, “For so you shall be while you are a man; / But when in other habit you are seen, / Orsino’s mistress, and his fancy’s queen” (V.i.372-375). When Puck states to the audience, “If we shadows have offended, / Think but this, and all is mended: / That you have but slumbered here, / While these visions did appear” the idea is expressed that even the audience may have been dreaming and that is the only thing that can explain the mayhem that has occurred throughout the play. He refers to the players as “shadows” which suggests that perhaps they are mere figments of the imagination rather than actual persons and that they are only fleeting images that change with the light. Using the word “shadow” is also important because throughout the play, it is the shadowy presence of the fairies and magic that drives the main action by both creating and then finally resolving the conflict.

While the reader can easily “see” the fairies in this text, they are mysterious and stand in sharp contrast to the more serious human characters, thus making their presence even more ethereal and dreamlike. Interestingly, all of the fairies and supernatural entities in "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" are shadowy in some senses, especially because they operate under the cover of night and without the knowledge of the humans. In many ways, “shadows” that “offend” in this case means not just Puck, but all of the fairies in general since they separate apart from human activity. The “shadows” present in Twelfth Night are not literally shadowy beings, but the shadows of reality. The very idea of a shadow is that of a blurred representation of reality and through the consistent gender bending and disguise of characters such as Viola, reality itself is not what appearances convey until the very conclusion.

It is clear that both plays are similar because they employ manipulations of reality through altering appearances. Certainly, this is one of the aspects of each play that makes it a comedy and the fact that they both end with happy unions and the reconciliation of the false appearances, which have driven much of the action. Where the two plays diverge within this theme, however, is both in terms of how the dichotomy of appearance and reality come about (through magic or conscious decision) and what motivations or intents drive such deception. When viewed as whole, these two plays share more in common that might seem readily apparent and although the settings are vastly different, the character’s reactions to the tension of reality versus appearance is similar and leads to a comparable final result.

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Article by Nicole Smith  ~   All Content Copyright 2008 Article Myriad. All Rights Reserved.

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