Act+1+Questions

media type="file" key="MSND Act 1 Night.mp3" width="216" height="18" By Michael Griffin and Devon Fang

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Hippolyta's reasoning how quickly the next four days will pass differs from Theseus' reasoning because while Theseus thinks that the next four days will be like an eternity, Hippolyta thinks that the next four days will pass quickly. =====

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2. Why has Egeus brought his daughter and her two suitors to Theseus? What does Egeus expect him to do? Egeus brought his daughter and her two suitors to Theseus because he wanted to show Theseus Lysander and Demetrius, so he could criticize Lysander, and promote Demetrius. But since Hermia loves Lysander, Egeus wants Theseus to either give him the right to kill Hermia if she marries Lysander instead of Demetrius, or let Theseus give Hermia another option (becoming a nun). =====

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What is Theseus’s ruling concerning Hermia? According to Egeus and Theseus, the proper rule for women/daughters in the Athenian society is to follow whatever their father wants them to do, including deciding who to marry. If they defy him, the father has a right to kill them. =====

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Lysander's comment complicates things because since Egeus wants Hermia to marry Demetrius, he doesn't want anybody to reveal any of Demetrius' flaws, because then it would be harder to get Hermia to listen to him. =====

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Lysander and Hermia plan to run away to Lysander's aunt's house, because his aunt is a widow, and she respects Lysander highly. Also, they can escape the law and marry each other out in the forest. They tell Helena about their plan to run because if Demetrius sees them leave, then he'll be sad, but then Helena can be there for him, and Demetrius will love Helena again. =====

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Hermia's dilemma is that she wants to marry Lysander, except her father, Egeus, wants her to marry Demetrius. The two choices that Egeus gives Hermia to choose between is to either marry Demetrius, or let himself kill her. Lysander suggests that they could run away to his aunt's house, so that they can get married there, and then have wonderful life. =====

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This scene is funny in the way that Bottom keeps interrupting the others to say that he could do it better, even though he probably cannot. Shakespeare probably included this scene in the play because he wanted to make a reason for why some people could spoil Lysander and Hermia's plan to run away to the woods at night. (Also, just for some comic relief) =====

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Bottom's acting ability is probably quite atrocious, and you know this because he lies a lot. You know that he lies a lot because he said that he knew everything about the play, but then didn't even know who the main character was. So you know that he lies, so when he says that he's the "best actor ever," you can probably make an inference saying that although he thinks his acting ability is far beyond any other actor's in the world, he's probably bad at it. =====