Le1 Chiafei Le 1006537838 DRE121 Scene-Analysis Assignment Midsummer Night’s Dream: 2.2.41-162 1. How many characters are in this scene? How many of them are speaking characters? what are their genders? There are total of five characters in this scene and all of them are speaking characters. Two female characters and three male characters.(I suppose Robin is a male character.) 2. How many lines does the scene have? There’s 121lines in total 3. Rank the speaking role in the number of lines. Lysander, Helena, Hermia, Robin, Demetrius 4. Does the scene explicitly require any props, furniture, or scenery? Because the scene is set in a forest, I suppose they might need related scenery. Also, they might need a prop of some kind to symbolize the magical flower juice. Analysis: In this scene, Robin mistaken Lysander for Demetrius and dropped the magical flower juice onto Lysander’s eyelid which charmed him into falling in love with Helena. The key narrative moments are when Robin’s narrative, and Lysander’s narrative when he began confessing his love toward Helena. Robin’s narrative is the Le2 beginning and reason of the conflict in the scene, which is when he dropped the love potion onto Lysander’s eyelid, causing Lysander’s love to turn from Hermia to Helena. The conflict starts from the love potion which as the reader can tell that something bad is going to happen. The original conflict raised earlier is just between the two suitor and Hermia. However the appearance of Helena (along with Lysander’s confession) in this specific situation developed the conflict by adding her into the original relationship between Lysander, Hermia, and Demetrius. However, I feel like this scene did not resolve any issue raised in earlier scenes The figures in the scene are Lysander, Hermia, Helena, Demetrius and Robin. The only character that went through actual transformation is Lysander because he was charmed by the love potion. And because of his transferral of love, the two women were obviously affected which is predictable. The only characters who were not affected so far are Robin who wasn’t involved in the relationship any way, and Demetrius because he had not encounter them yet. Also, other than Lysander who was actually going through the transformation, the character who was affected the most is Helena. The sudden confession she received from Lysander seemed like a mockery which provoked her. Because that there are a lot of magical and unnatural things in the scene, I feel that Helena’s reaction after hearing Lysander’s confession is the most realistic thing that was presented. If that is the case, then I think the theme of the scene is to show mentally inferiority and how that can affect one’s reaction. Helena had said herself that “I am as ugly as a bear…What wicked and dissembling glass of mine made me Le3 compare with Hermia’s sphery eyne?”(2.2.100-105) and “never- nor never candeserve a sweet look from Demetrius’ eye.” (2.2.132-133). Here, she had separated Hermia and herself onto two different levels where she doesn’t deserve anything. Also, Demetrius’ action of leaving her in the dark shows that Helena is not a valued person. Furthermore, the relationship between the characters of this scene is a love triangle and Helena is like an extra line attached to one of the sides. So when a side of the triangle, Lysander, breaks away from the original triangle and reattached to the extra line of Helena, Helena received the attention that she had never received before. However, due to the inferiority which had formed inside her, her first response is that she had been made fun of rather than something might have changed Lysander’s mind. In these scenes, I believe that the characters must have a lot of interactions between them since it’s hard to show their feeling when they are simply speaking to each other. For example, when Demetrius and Helena run into the scene, Helena probably grabbed him before they stopped and talked. Another example is when Lysander saw Helena when he woke up. To show that he suddenly held love for Helena, the actor would have to gesture his love through action, expression, or tone in order to tell the audience what is happening.
