Yaryna Dyakiv
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (c. 1595) by William Shakespeare is a comedy that examines relationships between men and women, as well as gender roles. Some influential scholars, like Sukanta Chaudhuri and James Calderwood, view A Midsummer Night’s Dream as a celebration of patriarchy where women’s opinions and desires are neglected and either mortal or fairy men make decisions for them. These critics see marriages at the end of the play as a patriarchal victory, taking the power of a woman from one man (father) and giving it to another (husband). Furthermore, Oberon and Theseus, the strong rulers of Athens and the fairy world, are usually those who are blamed for the miserable fates of women in the play. However, recent research in folklore studies has shown that the fairy world is a matriarchal society, which makes Oberon a subordinate character, takes away the suggested power, and gives him a unique perspective into the societal constraints placed on mortal women. Shakespeare subverts traditional gender roles in A Midsummer Night’s Dream through Oberon and Titania by depicting Oberon as a feminine character who acts in the best interests of the mortal women in the play and cannot exert control over his wife, Titania, who does not conform to early modern assumptions about women.
Feminine characteristics in contemporary society differ from those that dominated in early modern England when A Midsummer Night’s Dream was written. To analyze and understand A Midsummer Night’s Dream properly, one should consider the play through the lens of an early modern audience’s assumptions. Ann Rosalind Jones explains that “in Renaissance gender ideology, fame was not for women. […] [T]he proper woman is an absence: legally she vanishes under the name and authority of her father and her husband […]. She is silent and invisible: she does not speak, and she is not spoken about” (74).[1] The less the woman expresses her thoughts and reminds others of her presence, the more she conforms to early modern assumptions about female behavior. Hippolyta serves as a good example of such conduct. After being conquered by her husband, Theseus, she loses her fame as an Amazon queen and embodies the stereotypes of a perfect woman during the Renaissance. Her lines make up less than two percent of A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Hippolyta’s silence and relative invisibility is proven by having only fourteen pieces of dialogue (speeches) while her husband has forty-eight. She appears only at the play’s beginning and end, never being a central figure (Schwarz). In contrast, Titania, the queen of the fairy world, has almost the same number of speeches as Oberon, the king and her husband (twenty-three and twenty-nine respectively). Furthermore, Titania is not afraid to voice her opinions and dares to disobey Oberon’s orders. During the major conversation between the fairy rulers in the act 2 scene 1, Titania speaks twice more often than her husband, subverting Renaissance views of women.
Titania lacks the traits that could allow readers to consider her a feminine character who “just vanishes under the name of her husband” (Jones 74). Regina Buccola confirms that “Titania’s conduct poses a direct challenge to the early modern rubric for the good wife, chaste, silent, and obedient.” She does not let Oberon control her and is not concerned about being an exemplary wife, either. “I have forsworn his [Oberon’s] bed and company,” states Titania, threating Oberon to never sleep with him or talk to him again (2.1.62). In response, Oberon tries to show his superiority by saying, “Tarry, rash wanton. Am not I thy lord?” (2.1.63). Titania’s response is anything but obedient and submissive. She never agrees that Oberon is her lord but conditionally says that if he were, he would be faithful to her. Titania continues with accusations of Oberon’s infidelity and calls his accusations “forgeries of jealousy” (2.1.81). Yet according to Oberon, Titania ruined several of Theseus’s affairs in order to seduce him herself,
Didst not thou lead him [Theseus] through the glimmering night
From Perigenia, whom he ravished?
And make him with fair Aegles break his faith,
With Ariadne, and Antiopa?” (2.1.77-80)
Titania’s sexual taste for mortal men shows that she has been neither chaste nor faithful. Her willingness to betray Oberon and her own sexual unruliness are signs of power which signify the absence of Oberon’s dominance over Titania.
Titania neither prioritizes Oberon nor performs his commands. Her devotion to the votaress’s child is much stronger than to her husband and indicates a higher priority. This devotion could be due to close relationship with the mother of the Indian boy. Sukanta Chaudhuri states that “there is the sense of a fulfilled, self-sufficient female bonding” between Titania and her votaress (85). Only Titania’s dominance over Oberon could allow this bonding and responsibility toward a mortal woman more importance than fulfilling Oberon’s orders or at least trying to achieve a compromise. Titania clearly realizes that the cause of chaos in the world is a lack of peace and understanding between fairy rulers, but she will not sacrifice custody of the Indian boy as her husband demands, even for the sake of order and the well-being of her dependents. Titania acknowledges that their argument causes a world where “the winds,”
[…] have sucked up from the sea
Contagious fogs, which, falling in the land,
Hath every pelting river made so proud
That they have overborne their continents,
that is, the world has become full of diseases and altered seasons (2.1.88-92). Titania further admits that the chaos is happening because she and her attendants have not met “since the middle summer’s spring” to dance their “ringlets to the whistling wind” without Oberon’s “brawls” disturbing their “sport,” but again, she is not going to cede to Oberon (2.1.82; 86-87).
Furthermore, while Titania appears with multiple fairies throughout the play, Oberon has only one servant that the readers know of – Robin Goodfellow. Titania’s multiple subordinates also indicates her importance in the fairy realm. Given this apparent status, as well as her defiant behavior, Oberon appears much less powerful. Yet Mary Ellen Lamb argues that “the patriarchy is restored as Oberon overcomes Titania’s brief rebellion against his wishes,” and the magic juice is a justified tool in the hands of the king (309). In this analysis, Lamb assumes Titania’s behavior is a challenge for Oberon’s power, not vice versa. However, an early modern audience would have considered Titania the ruler of the fairy world and Oberon as a rebellious husband who tries to usurp the queen’s role and power.
Just as Theseus is considered the ruler of the Athenian world, Oberon is respectively thought to be the authoritative figure in the fairy world. James L. Calderwood states that the fairy world is “all Athens in another key or mode,” and Oberon and Titania are Theseus and Hippolyta’s “Athenian counterparts,” assuming that Oberon, like Theseus, is in the position of power (411). Hence, Titania’s refusal to obey her husband is seen as a rebellious action for which Oberon must punish Titania to restore his power over her. However, recent developments in the study of folklore have demonstrated that, for an early modern audience, fairyland would have been recognized as a domain where the queen has the exclusive authority, or was at least a figure who dominated her partner, the fairy king (Buccola). Usually, the fairies’ government is represented as matriarchal, ruled by the queen alone. According to the Standard Dictionary of Folklore, the fairyland is ruled over by a king and queen, but generally the queen is dominant (Leach and Fried 363).
In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, such a pattern may not be obvious at first. However, a close analysis of Oberon and Titania’s lines proves not only that early modern audiences would have considered Titania the dominant figure, but that both rulers know their status and position in the fairy world. When Titania is drugged, she still has the power to silence and dominate Nick Bottom. She warns him not to leave the woods and threatens, “I am a spirit of no common rate” (3.1.148), demonstrating her supremacy and setting herself apart and above other spirits. In comparison, Oberon says, “We are spirits of another sort,” without emphasizing his authority, uniqueness, or importance but making a collective reference about all the fairies (3.2.388).[2] The differences in how Oberon and Titania refer to themselves indicate an understanding of their roles in the fairy realm dominated by Titania.
During the play, Titania never wants more power or control, and her refusal to be bribed with possession of the fairy kingdom is ironic, as she already controls the kingdom. For example, when Oberon asks Titania to give up the Indian boy, saying, “Why should Titania cross her Oberon? / I do but beg a little changeling boy / To be my henchman,” she fearlessly responds, “Set your heart at rest. / The fairy land buys not the child of me” (2.1.119-22). Further, he commands again, “Give me that boy,” and Titania says again, “Not for thy fairy kingdom” (2.1.143-44). Considering that the fairy realm was dominated by Titania, those responses appear to be aimed at teasing Oberon and demonstrating Titania’s superior status. While Oberon is begging for the Indian boy, Titania communicates with him using an ultimatum: “If you patiently dance in you round / And see our moonlight revels, go with us; / If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts” (2.1.140-42). Titania not only shows her dominance in her speeches but also in her actions, abruptly ending the conversation with Oberon and leaving without a farewell.
For his part, Oberon is unable to control Titania. His behavior does not conform to early modern understandings about masculinity and even resembles some Renaissance assumptions about women – in particular, women’s tendency to get what they want using insidious and treacherous ways due to an inability to achieve it straightforwardly. Oberon’s cunning behavior and choice of methods to achieve his goals show how his character coincides with early modern stereotypes about women being “disorderly, unruly, untrustworthy,” and “crooked by nature” (Walters 158). Since the fairy king is unable to exert control as a husband and king through the power of his words or other masculine methods (such as Theseus’s victory of Hippolyta), he attempts to achieve his goals through trickery and deception.
Oberon creates political and sexual chaos by drugging Titania and making the queen fall in love with a “lion, bear, or wolf, or bull, / On meddling monkey, or on busy ape” (2.1.180-81). According to Lisa Walters, because of such behavior, “under early modern law, he [Oberon] could be designated a sodomite or at least as causing sodomy” (158) because the first English sodomy law would punish with death those found guilty of the “detestable and abhomynable vice of buggery commytted with mankynde or beaste” (“Buggery”). Alan Bray explains that sodomy “in the early modern period was a general notion of debauchery linked to politically dangerous behavior,” and Oberon’s rebellion against the fairy queen would most likely fit into that category (16). None of his choices indicate masculine principles of rationality and wisdom; Oberon is not the “king or father who exercises order over the kingdom or household,” but he is rather “the subversion of good order,” the phrase that, according to John Knox, describes any woman in a position of political authority and rulership (Walters 158). Oberon not only represents early modern feminine traits; he also takes care of mortal women, guides them in the fairy world, and satisfies their wishes.
Desperately wanting to be together with objects of their affections, Hermia and Helena act according to previously mentioned stereotypical assumptions about women. They both use deceptive and insidious ways to achieve their goals; Hermia deceives her father and runs away with Lysander to secretly marry him, and Helena betrays her friends, Hermia and Lysander, in the hope of winning Demetrius. Despite the unworthy methods they choose, at the end of the play, the women’s wishes are satisfied because the fairy king assists in actualizing them. Perhaps one of the reasons why Oberon helps these women is his similarity with them – all of them know how it feels to be in a subordinate position and none of them can achieve their goals without trickery due to their circumstances. Neither Egeus’s desire for Hermia to marry Demetrius, nor Demetrius’s wish to be with Hermia is considered by the fairy king while he is trying to “fix” the mortal world. At the beginning of the play, it is very unlikely that women will get what they want, especially Helena due to the opposition of the duke and Demetrius’s rejection of her in favor of Hermia; Hermia, at least, has Lysander on her side.
Interestingly, Oberon is the one who forges a connection with Helena as soon as he finds her in the woods and decides to create a happy ending for her. Significantly, at precisely the moment when he takes pity on her, Oberon calls Helena a “nymph”: “Fare thee well, nymph. Ere he do leave this grove, / Thou shalt fly him, and he shall seek thy love” (2.1.245-46). Regina Buccola explains that by calling Helena a “nymph,” “Oberon aligns Helena by name with the fairy realm he inhabits as he echoes her promise to change not just myth but her own story to its diametrical opposite.” When Oberon observes Helena, his initial impulse is to help her fight against the social structures that limit her ability to get the man she wants on her terms. By promising to help Helena, Oberon devotes his actions to the happiness and well-being of the women in the play. Regina Buccola confirms that “The lovers in A Midsummer Night’s Dream are ultimately united by a fairy force aligned with the female desires of both Helena and Hermia.” At the end of the play, Oberon manages to accomplish his promise, as both Hermia and Helena are comfortably settled into the relationships they want. He also makes peace with Titania, who is finally restored to her rightful role as the queen.
Considering the early modern audience’s views on authority, rulership, and feminine and masculine characteristics, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a play full of subversion. Oberon cannot control his wife, Titania, who has much more power and authority than he in the fairy world and lacks conformity to early modern views on women. Oberon also does not conform to an early modern understanding of masculinity. Oberon is the one who resembles assumptions about women, guiding female characters during the play, providing them with happy endings, and proving the subversion of gender roles in the play.
Works Cited
“The Buggery Act of 1533.” Collection, https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-buggery-act-1533.
Bray, Alan. Homosexuality in Renaissance England. Columbia UP, 1982.
Buccola, Regina. “‘The Story Shall Be Changed’: The Fairy Feminism of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Shakespearean Criticism, edited by Michelle Lee, vol. 112, Gale, 2008. Gale Literature Resource Center, https://link-gale-com.ccc.idm.oclc.org/apps/doc/H1420082640/LitRC?u=chic13716&sid=LitRC&xid=b21fda94. Originally published in Fairies, Fractious Women, and the Old Faith: Fairy Lore in Early Modern British Drama and Culture, Susquehanna UP, 2006, pp. 58-82.
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Lamb, Mary Ellen. “Taken by the Fairies: Fairy Practices and the Production of Popular Culture in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 51, no. 3, 2000, pp. 277–312. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2902152.
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Schwarz, Kathryn. “Tragical Mirth: Framing Shakespeare’s Hippolyta.” Shakespearean Criticism, edited by Michelle Lee, vol. 112, Gale, 2008. Gale Literature Resource Center, https://link-gale-com.ccc.idm.oclc.org/apps/doc/H1420082633/LitRC?u=chic13716&sid=LitRC&xid=de175cc2. Originally published in Tough Love: Amazon Encounters in the English Renaissance, Duke UP, 2000, pp. 203-35.
Walters, Lisa. “Oberon and Masculinity in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” ANQ, vol. 26, no. 3, Sept. 2013, pp. 157–160. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/0895769X.2013.779172.
[1] Jones’s emphasis.
[2] Emphases mine.