Essay on Puck's Speech in a Midsummer Night's Dream

‘A Midsummer Night's Dream’ is a comedy play about the duality of imagination, reality and the cruelty of love. Puck is Oberon’s servant and is a mischievous fairy who causes lots of trouble in the play as his character is prone to make unfortunate mistakes. An example would be that he squirted the love juice into the wrong man’s eyes which began a huge fight. In Puck’s epilogue, Shakespeare uses both the structure and the imagery to serve both as an apology for the play itself and a direct link between the world of the play and the world of the audience. In this speech, Puck is perhaps speaking on behalf of the actors and directly from Shakespeare to the audience.

In the first section of the speech, “we shadows” refers to the characters in the play. It is a metaphor that suggests that perhaps they are mere illusions of the dream rather than actual people and that they are just imaginary and harmless. The phrase “you have but slumbered here”, means that you fell asleep. The word “visions” are the scenes and characters in the play. Puck tells the audience to pretend that this play is just a vision when they are asleep, referring to these visions as a dream. The word “visions” makes the play seem unreal and made-up.

In the second section of the speech, “weak and idle theme” means ‘pathetic story’, which suggests that it is just a story and it is harmless and unreal. Puck reassures the audience by telling them “no more yielding but a dream”. The word ‘dream’ is a metaphor for the play and is also the title of the show. This phrase means that it’s not real, it’s all just a dream, it’s harmless and powerless. This can suggest that the fairies existed and played tricks on the audience, just like they did with the lovers in the play. As when they wake up, they say that it is nothing more than a Midsummer Night’s Dream. Puck uses the word “Gentles” to address the audience. Because it is a polite word to use, it conveys a sense of peace, which make it easier for the audience to forgive the actors.

In the third section of the speech, Puck refers to himself as “an honest Puck”. He says this with irony as we all know that he, the most mischievous fairy in the play, is not honest. Therefore, he says it with a bit of a wink and a playful smile.

During the fourth section of the speech, Puck tells the audience, “give me your hands”, which means ‘clap for me’. He’s telling the audience to show appreciation. And if they clap, Puck says that he will “restore amends”, which means that he will fix everything and turn everything back to normal.

Puck’s speech is in tetrameter, which is four feet per line, rather than five as in the usual pentameter lines Shakespeare often uses and written using trochaic metre rather than the more usual iambic. The tetrameter and rhyming couplets let it have a sing-song quality and make it seem like a lullaby, making it seem like a dream and that the audience is asleep. It is as if he is trying to put the reader back in another dream state so they can forget what has just happened and become lulled by the magic of his words.

Shakespeare uses structure and language to achieve effects for an audience in Puck’s epilogue by using figurative language and imagery. Shakespeare creates a 'just woken up from a ‘dream’ effect for the audience by using words like “shadows”, “visions” and “no more yielding but a dream”. He also creates the effect by using tetrameter to make it seem like a lullaby, making the play seem like a dream that they just awoke from.