Midsummer Night's Dream and Moon Imagery

Those of you who normally read my blog are probably wondering what this is. It’s not in my usual style, and it certainly isn’t on my usual subject matter. After such a long hiatus, why is she back now and why is there actual Shakespeare? This is a writing class assignment that I have been instructed to post online. Just because it’s for an assignment, though, doesn’t mean I didn’t have fun writing it. So read it maybe? ^_^

So no, this will not be THIS.

In Midsummer Night’s Dream, moon imagery demonstrates how Theseus and others control women through their chastity, or lack thereof, and stigmatize female independence. Moonlight, however, also provides the backdrop for many of the play’s romances, implying that chastity, and maybe independence, is valuable.

The moon is associated with Diana, the goddess of virginity and the hunt. As an Amazon, Hippolyta was both chaste and fierce, and therefore connected to the goddess and the moon. In the play, however, Hippolyta has lost her independence before the audience sees her. The moon imagery in her scenes shows how she has abandoned her nature and how Athens would disapprove of her independence. Early on, Theseus makes it clear that celibacy is undesirable when he explains that Hermia can either obey her father, die, or join a convent under Diana. While execution is a worse punishment, Theseus devotes only three lines to death, while thirteen lines describe the supposed horrors of single life. Even stranger, though, is the idea that these completely different punishments fit the same crime. By saying that both punishments are possible, the law suggests that single life and death are equivalent. Theseus describes the moon, and the nun’s life worshipping it, as “cold” and “fruitless” (I, i, 73). These words portray chastity as inhospitable and as lacking something instead of as a virtue. The words’ sterility carries a connotation of deadness, reinforcing the idea that death and a life without men are the same. Putting less value on chastity boosts female independence if it allows women freedom before marriage. However, the chastity that Theseus opposes is in the context of the Amazons and of the convent, where celibacy reflects independence from men. The thing that makes women’s sexuality desirable is that it keeps them in male control.

The moon is not only inhospitable. It is disappearing. Theseus says “how slow/This old moon wanes!” to mean that their marriage is too far away (I, i, 3-4). He desires for the moon to disappear. “This” suggests that the moon is being exchanged for another instead of hiding to return again. Similarly, Hippolyta commits to a permanent change by becoming a bride. The fact that the moon “wanes” means that to change is to shrink. Theseus and Hippolyta’s wedding is to take place on the New Moon, when the moon will not be visible at all (I, i, 83). Hippolyta must hide or destroy her Diana-like chastity and independence in order to be married.

Despite Theseus’s disapproval for what the moon represents, it remains an emblem of love. Egeus, when complaining about Lysander’s wooing Hermia, mentions that Lysander’s wooed her by moonlight (I, i, 30). The moon, here, has retained its connotation of independence, since Lysander is the match that Hermia has chosen. The ill-fated lovers in the play-within-a-play also met by moonlight. The players, even after checking and deciding that the real moon will be shining during the performance, decide to emphasize it by casting a person in the role. Despite the fact that the moon, unlike the wall, has no role in furthering the plot, the players do not want to leave it out. Again, the lovers are people who have chosen each other, exercising their independence. Even Hippolyta and Theseus, whose courtship is not shown, have a metaphorical backdrop of moonlight to their relationship, since Amazons and Diana are linked. The moon, along with the independence it represents, is both a hindrance and a necessity to romantic love.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream uses the moon to deal with the overlap between chastity, independence, and love. While the moon, associated with chastity and hunting is shown as cold, undesirable, and transient, it remains a necessary backdrop to romance.

Works Cited
"enforce, v." OED Online. March 2013. Oxford University Press. 13 March 2013. <http:0-www.oed.com.luna.wellesley.edu/view/Entry/62160?rskey=YbGWKT&result=2&isAdvanced=false>

Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Ed. Russ McDonald. New York: Penguin Group, 2000. Print.

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream~ Ein Sommernactstraum.” Princess Tutu. Dir. Shougo Koumoto. Aesir Holdings, (2011). DVD.