Considered one of William Shakespeare's greatest plays, A Midsummer Night's Dream reads like a fantastic tale and imaginative; however, his poetic lines contain a message of love, reality and chance that is not usually present in works of this genre. All the characters in the play are playful, carefree, and thoughtless, and Puck: one of the play's central characters: is important to the plot, tone, and meaning of A Midsummer Night's Dream, thus becoming a representative of the themes mentioned above. .Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay The plot of this Shakespeare play is comic and, at times, ironic. As Puck sums it up in the final stanza of the play: If we shadows have offended, think of this, and all is right: that you but slept here, while these visions appeared. not reprimand: if you forgive, we will repair. And, as I am an honest PuckIf we have undeserved luckNow, to escape the serpent's tongue, we will make amends before long; Otherwise, Puck is a liar:So, good night to you all.Give me your hands, if we are friends, and Robin will restore the fines. (Shakespeare 89) Puck suggests to both the audience and, therefore, the readers, that if they have not enjoyed the tale, they should pretend it were a dream: a notion so compelling that sometimes the audience remains perplexed; this effect of his works made Shakespeare seem so cunning, like Puck. The lines above phrase the ending of the play in an ironic and humorous way, the same way the rest of the story was told. The overall plot, with some characters emphasizing puns more than others, also contributed to the spirit of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The cunning manner developed by Shakespeare was often found in the play in ironic forms when a character in the book says something that is a play on words or has multiple meanings, as when Puck states, "and, as I have said, I am and honest Puck/Else the Puck is a liar: (Shakespeare 90). In Shakespeare's time, Puck was never honest and always lied to prank people. Therefore, the audience was deceived into believing that the story was a dream. Many stanzas were integrated into the plot and contained deep critical thoughts behind them that made the storyline of the scenes complex and misleading. Puck's important role in these situations is evident in his character development which seems illusory and fanciful. Puck also tied the story together in the parts where the plot got serious to make them clever and fun to watch. The plot of this play contained many different phrases that made the story intriguing and Puck helped emphasize the comedic side of the characters in the tale and Shakespeare's writing of the play. The tone of the entire piece is slightly satirical, but overall good-natured. towards the characters. Historically, Puck has been part of English folklore for a long time, even before Shakespeare. His other name, Robin Goodfellow, meant that "[t]he mind was not actually good by nature, but was called Goodfellow as a sort of appeasement, intended to turn the pranks of the mind away from others" (Bulfinch ). In Shakespeare's time, Puck was a mischievous creature known for his evil, unserious, and playful ways. His other name, Hobgoblin, suggests the true meaning of his nature. In the second half of the play, the characters undergo a change in each other's attitudestowards others, because of the antics administered by Puck. Puck wanders around and dispenses a love potion into the eyes of mortals, causing them to fall in love with the inappropriate member of the opposite sex. Shakespeare, as an author, plays with the characters and through Puck, the characters' roles are reversed, making the play more appealing in a comedic sense. To make the play's manner pay off with deep meaning despite the comic plot, many characters said metaphors like this: “I'm going, I'm going; look how I go / Swifter than the arrow of Tarter's bow” (Shakespeare 45). The Tarters were people who fought with the Mongol hordes and who possessed bows containing a special power that made them faster than lightning. The connotation of the excerpt demonstrates that Puck was meandering through the forest so fast that he causes a lot of damage to the characters in the play, like a bow. The ironic and playful tone that the play embodies is achieved through Puck's adventurous misadventures. Many meanings can be deciphered from this piece and can be interpreted in many ways; one of them reveals how human beings are too easily influenced and subjected to non-reality, chance and love through appearance and emotions. “What fools these mortals are!” » (Shakespeare 46) Puck expresses, his single line hinting at several possible interpretations. In the line above we read Shakespeare's idea that humans are too easily affected by their feelings. Puck states in an exclamatory accent that mortals are fools because they cannot properly control their emotions and are never sure of what they feel within themselves. Chance is too often taken as shown in Puck's “A Midsummer Night's Dream,” when Puck declares “[t]hey are the women, but not that, the man” (Shakespeare 43). Oberon took a chance with love when he described the Athenian on whom Puck was to dispense the love potion, and this chance was taken wrongly, for Puck put the potion on another man, who was not supposed to be issued with it. This also shows that there is some mockery in Puck's statement that leprechauns aren't the only ones having loving fun. Reality is often mixed with mystical thoughts as well as feelings. Shakespeare must have realized this because he often showed implications in his plays of this type, for example: when Titania expresses her love for a mortal with a donkey's head on him and she says: "Come on." sit on this flowery bed, While I show shyness on your kind cheeks, and stick musk roses in your smooth, elegant head, and kiss your lovely, large ears, my sweet joy” (Shakespeare 62) . This illustrates the type of ridicule that Shakespeare subjected his characters to in order to express a point of view. So he had to have other characters such as Puck contribute to these events. Therefore, the deeper meaning of the play is much more complex than what the eye can see, and through Puck's actions, these compelling meanings are revealed to be. Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a personalized article from our expert writers now. .Get a Custom EssayOverall, the play A Midsummer Night's Dream contains many important characteristics represented by Puck. The in-depth analysis of each character depends on the actions and attributes of the other characters and Puck contributes to the deceptive aura of the play. Another key factor in this play was its many inclinations towards comic relief and Puck's involvement in creating misadventures. The mood, the involvement and the pattern are all.). (2003)..