Hi everyone :)
Please read Act 3 and use the comments function to provide your reply to the questions below:
In light of events that transpire in Act Three, what is your opinion on:
(i) the significance of Titania's infatuation with Bottom
and describe
(ii) how their 'love affair' comments on the main thematic concerns of the play?
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1)In my opinion, I feel that the significance of Titania's infatuation with Bottom was to show that love is blind. As we understand, Titania fell in love with Bottom under the influence of the love-in-idleness potion. Because of the potion, Titania came to fall in love with Bottom, the first person she saw. This also emphasizes to the audience that people may not be able to 'see' or understand each other under the influence of love and may act implusively, just like how Titania did. Titania fell for Bottom because of the potion and this clearly shows to the audience that the message behind this was to show that love is blind and that people may act irrationally because of it.
ReplyDelete2) As we know, the play revolves around the topic of love. From this incident, we see a contrast between Hermia and Lysander's love and Titania and Bottom's.Hermia and Lysander fell in love not because of a potion,but Titania's infatuation was due to the potion. From this, we once again see that love is blind and that probably, did not make sense. This scene of the play gives the impression that love is beyond our control and that what a person experiences(in this case, Titania)may not be love, but a silly crush in a moment of spite.
Oh Kai Rong(16) , 3 courage
(i) the significance of Titania's infatuation with Bottom
ReplyDeleteTitania’s infatuation with Bottom is a cruel slightly humorous reflection of the troubles that the Lovers go through, with Lysander and Demetrius falling for Helena now, and Hermia cast away, unable to understand how her love has suddenly turned against her.
Although the none of the lovers were physically affected and still retained the same looks, their plight is similar to that or Titania and Bottom, as their emotions are controlled not by their heart and mind but by the drug. Oberon starts to pity the queen, saying, “Her dotage now I do begin to pity” in act 4, seeing his Queen affected that much by the drug, lost and head over heels with an ass-headed man (“the shallowest thickskin of that barren sort”), it hurts him to see her suffer in such a way.
Similarly, the Oberon is filled with the same pity when he sees the mess and chaos that Puck has created, all the sweet relationships and friendships broken with such a slight mistake (anointing the wrong person). Now, not only has Lysander and Hermia’s relationship gone awry, “Get you gone dwarf!”(an insult from Lysander) , “Why are you gone so rude! What change is this, Sweet love?”(Hermia unable to comprehend why her lover has transferred his affections to another in the course of one night), Demetrius has also changed and fallen in love with Helena. Although this is his rightful partner, under the effect of the love juice, his affections are untrue and not from his heart, full of exaggerated and false descriptions“ O Helen, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine”. Helena sees this, and presumes that he is mocking her, “Never did mockers waste more idle breath”.
Oberon instructs Puck to clear the mess and trouble that was caused by the love juice, while he releases Titania (of course achieving his aim of obtaining the changeling boy). Through Titania’s relationship we see the
and describe
(ii) how their 'love affair' comments on the main thematic concerns of the play?
Titania and Bottom’s love affair ties in with the theme of Love, telling us that Love is not always reasonable/sensible, and that when in love, you are not controlled by your mind, To quote Bottom: “And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays”. Also, their love affair represents the imbalance of nature and appearance showing that Love can cross all borders, even though Titania is beautiful and graceful and Bottom is clumsy and crude totally opposite from her, Titania still adored him.
Their experience also explores the theme of magic and dreams, showing how the usage of drugs (the love juice in this case)can cause unexpected consequences, in Titania’s case, it caused the more unimaginable love affair on earth. When Titania awoke, she said to Oberon, “My Oberon, What visions have I seen!/ Methought I was enamoured of an ass”. To her, the short affair that she had with Bottom was like a dream, unreal and unbelievable. Similarly, Bottom says of his experience, “I have had a dream past the wit of man to say what dream it was.”All this links closely to the theme of dreams.
Tan Yi Xin (23)
Secondary Three Courage (:
i) In my opinion, Titantia’s infatuation with Bottom signifies that love is unreasonable. In the play, Bottom said, “truth, reason and love, keep little company together nowadays”. It shows that love can happen to any two people, regardless of the status, appearance etc. It seems ridiculous that the fairy queen would fall in love with a lowly mortal craftsman with an ass-head.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Titania’s infatuation with Bottom signifies that people can be blinded by love to see the truth. Due to the effect of the love juice on her eyes, Titania falls in love with bottom at first sight. As she is so blinded by love, she fails to see reason and truth – that it is Oberon’s revenge plot to make her give up the changeling boy and that she has fallen in love with a man with the head of an ass.
ii) Their ‘love affair’ comments the main thematic concerns of the play. Love is very fickle and is usually caused by seeing. The love juice is the primary example to show this as whoever the person with love juice applied on his eyes sees, is the person he falls in love with. This is seen in the case of Titania, Lysander and Demetrius who all had a change of heart upon the application of the love juice.
(i) The significance of Titania's infatuation is Oberon's ploy to taunt Titania and a selfish act to get hold of the changeling boy. Also, it probably serves as a little bit of humour for the play, as the great Fairy Queen is actually saying such lovey-dovey lines of a commoner, worse still, with an ass head.
ReplyDelete(ii) Their 'love affair' further highlights the theme of love, and that how it can happen without reason. With the love juice, love can happen just without reason. This 'love affair' also highlights the fact of magic being used here, magic to transform Bottom's head and magic to make Titania fall in love with Bottom.
Back to the theme of love and how it can happen without much reason, Titania's and Bottom's 'love affair' serves as a highlight to the theme and elaboration. With Titania's loveydovey lines in this act and scene, the theme of love and how it happens without reason is elaborated by Titania's sudden and deep infatuation with assheaded Bottom. The theme of love is highlighted here.
The theme of magic is also highlighted in here, magic by the love juice which causes Titania to fall deep in love with Bottom. Also, the fact that Bottom's head can be transformed into that of an ass is also by magic, so the theme of magic used in the play is highlighted in this act and this scene.
Jocelyn Tan 3COURAGE.
i)The significance of Titania’s infatuation with Bottom signifies what Bottom had said in Act three, whereby ‘Reason and love keep little company nowadays’. Thought Titania is already Oberon’s wife, she had fallen in love with the first creature she had saw because of the love potion Oberon gave to her as a punishment. The person was no other than Bottom with an ass head, and as unreasonable as it sounds to fall in love with a monster Bottom had temporarily become, Titania had proven that that reason and love does keep little company nowadays when she had fallen in love with Bottom, singing praises of him and attending to his every need.
ReplyDeleteii)Their ‘love affair’ comments on one main thematic concern of the play, which is on the theme ‘love’. Throughout the whole play, Shakespeare seemed to be mocking fun of ‘love’ itself as he had installed several scenes in the play that goes against either the idea of true love, for example in the later parts of the play whereby Lysander and Demetrius had fallen under the love potion and there was chaos and confusion and mix up of true love, or the idea of one loving another needs to have a suitable reason, and the ‘love affair’ here comments on the second idea. It is logical to think that loving someone will need its own reason, but Shakespeare had proven that wrong with the ‘love affair’ here, whereby Titania had fallen in love with Bottom because of the love potion. It was very unreasonable, no matter in terms like Titania was Oberon’s wife or it seemed ridiculous to fall in love with an ugly mortal that possess an ass head, but yet, because of a simple potion, reasoning had been thrown aside for the love to take place.
Lim Xin Hui (13)
3 JT