Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to today's learning on The Clash of the Settings.

So for today, you will need your pen and your paper by your side for me please.

Take a moment to clear away any distractions you might have, any notifications, any windows, anything that might distract you from that perfect learning environment.

So when that lovely quiet space is ready, let's begin.

Our two settings in a Midsummer Night's Dream in theory should clash because they're opposite.

However, those two settings, despite being opposites, managed to find a way in which they can exist side by side and actually unbeknown to the Athenians, ancient Athens actually needs the elements of the magical forest.

Let's begin by reminding ourselves first of all of the contrasting elements of these two settings.

So in ancient Athens, we have a place that is ordered.

That is traditional.

That is severe.

It has rules.

And men have power.

It's follows the rules of patriarchy that men are in charge.

And that is a contrast to our magical forest.

A place that is disordered.

A place that is chaotic, mysterious, wild, and men and women have power in the form of Oberon and Titania.

So order versus disorder, traditional versus chaotic, a place that's severe and has rules to a place that's mysterious and wild.

A place where men have power and a place where men and women have power.

So these two settings should clash.

When they cross paths in the play, they should clash.

However, like I've said it's very different to that.

And we're going to see how that unfolds in the course of our learning today.

So Athens versus The magical forest.

Let's put ourselves into a position where we can remind ourselves of how the characters can act in the setting that they're in and the boundaries that the settings put upon our characters.

So in Athens Hermia and Lysander cannot be together because Egeus', Hermia's father and as her father, he has complete rule over her.

She is his possession.

And in Athens, Demetrius and Helena suffer from unrequited love.

So Hermia and Lysander love each other and can't be together.

And our other two lovers both suffer from unrequited love and can't be with the person they want to be with.

So in terms of love, is love itself is very disordered in Athens, our traditional place.

In the magical forest, Hermia and Lysander can be together so they can be together in the magical forest.

Demetrius and Helena are in love and there is no unrequited love.

So despite being the disordered place, the chaotic place that the magical forest actually is in actual fact, that creates order within our four lovers within their relationships, That they can be with someone they are happy with.

And unbeknown to the Athenians, we know what has taken place in the magical forest.

We know that order within the lovers has not only been restored, but actually been improved so that nobody suffers from underquited love.

But that is unbeknown to the Athenians.

Theseus, Hypollyta, Egeus are three key characters in ancient Athens have no idea what is actually happened.

In terms of Athens, for Hermia, if she goes back to Athens, she still risks death.

Egeus still only approves of Demetrius.

And there is still a patriarchal society.

So the magical forest has fixed the lover's situation.

However, Athens at the moment is still in a state where it would not agree with what the magical forest has done because as far as ancient Athens and the laws and rules are concerned, Hermia still must obey her father because of that patriarchal society.

So the question, first of all, where can Lysander and Hermia be together? Is it in ancient Athens or in the magical forest? Site to your screen now.

Of course it is in the magical forest where they can be together.

Where do none of the four Athenian lovers suffer from unrequited love? In ancient Athens or in the magical forest? Site to your screen now.

Again, it is in the magical forest where there is no unrequited love.

None of the four lovers suffer from unrequited love in the magical forest.

Where does Hermia at risk death? In ancient Athens or in the magical forest? Excellent work is in ancient Athens because she has to follow Egeus' rules.

Egeus wants her to marry Demetrius, if she refuses, then the risk is death.

The lovers are discovered.

So Theseus, Egeus and Hyppolyta are coming across the lovers.

They are discovered.

So what we now have is a clash of these two settings.

We have a clash of the settings because we have the Athenians coming in to the magical forest to find out and they will find out what has actually gone on and what has taken place.

What the magical forest has allowed to happen.

What wouldn't have happened in ancient Athens.

So they are discovered.

And what we're going to work out is how Theseus and Egeus particularly react to this situation.

So Theseus says, I pray, you all stand up.

I know you two are rival enemies.

How comes this gentle concord in the world? That hatred is so far from jealousy to sleep by hate and fear no enmity.

So he orders them to stand up.

It's clear that he has authority.

Here's the Duke of Athens, the voice of law.

He maintains order.

So he tells him to stand up and he dresses them.

And when he's talking about the rival enemies, he's referring to Demetrius and Lysander that they're actually beside each other but they're supposed to be enemies.

And Lysander goes on to explain himself.

And he goes on to explain himself by saying, I came with Hermia hither.

Our intent was to be gone from Athens where we might be without the peril of the Athenian law.

So he admits that they left Athens.

He admits that they left Athens because they could not be together there.

The peril, the suffering of Athenian law.

What would happen to them if they stayed.

So he admits that they left.

So he's admitting that to Theseus.

And severe ancient Athens, ancient Athens are severe.

They have not obeyed in the way that they should have done.

And therefore Shakespeare is reminding us here, how the settings contrast.

he's reminding the audience of how these contrast, how low Lysander and Hermia are together in the forest, but they cannot be together in the same way in ancient Athens because of the way that the laws and the rules work there.

And we're left with the harsh reality of Athens.

This is Egeus' immediate response.

So when Lysander admits what has happened, Egeus instant response.

Enough, enough, my Lord, you have enough.

I beg the law, the law upon his head, they would have stolen away.

They would Demetrius thereby to have defeated you and me.

You have your wife and me have my consent of my consent, that she should be your wife.

The harsh reality that Egeus presents us with.

He presents us with the voice of Athens.

What you would expect from Athenian society.

This patriarchal system where the father is completely in charge.

And he just says, enough, enough.

I've had enough of this.

I don't want to hear it anymore.

And he begs the law upon Demetrius and upon Lysander's head.

Upon Lysanders head he begs the law that Lysander shall be killed for disobedience for not following instructions.

And he addresses Theseus.

He says, my Lord, you know, I've heard.

There's enough of this.

No more.

Don't wannna hear it.

And he addresses Demetrius specifically to say that Lysander and Hermia, have tried to defeat both himself and Demetrius.

That Lysander has tried to defeat him of his wife and defeat Egeus of his consent.

And Egeus is still standing by the fact that he wants Lysander to marry Demetrius.

And as far as Egeus is concerned, the law, the rules, the order is simple.

Disobedience equals death.

As we've seen with him and Hermia, we know that he said that Hermia shall be killed if she doesn't obey what she's asked to do.

And he's now asking the same of Lysander.

So Egeus is really simple.

Lysander and Hermia have run away.

They have not obeyed in the way that they should.

For him it's obvious what Theseus will do.

For him Theseus is the Duke of Athens.

He maintains order.

He is the voice of law.

He has authority.

So Egeus, Lysander and Hermia haven't followed the law, therefore Theseus's job is really simple that they should both be killed.

And in this case, he's particularly asking for Lysander to be killed because he's actually already ordered that his daughter will be killed if she does not marry Demetrius as he has asked.

So if Egeus' really simple, they haven't obeyed.

Therefore Theseus should inflict death upon them.

And it's that simple.

That's the harsh reality of Athens.

And that is Egeus' belief.

But there's an element of dramatic irony at this point.

Egeus is hoping for Demetrius' support and backup but the characters Theseus, Hippolytus, Egeus, as far as they are concerned, Demetrius still wants to marry Hermia.

That's what they believe.

Whereas the audience in actual fact, Demetrius is still under the love potion and loves Helena.

So the characters are three Athenians, Theuses, Hippolyta and Egeus do not know that Demetrius has changed his mind.

They do not know he now loves Helena.

So Egeusis actually turning to Demetrius to support him to back up his argument.

But we know that that's not going to happen.

So Demetrius' reveal takes place.

This is when Demetrius explains what has happened to Theseus, Hippolyta and Egeus.

But my Lord, I wot not by what power, but by some power it is my love to Hermia melted as the snow.

Seems to me now, as the remembrance of an idle gaud, which in my childhood,I did dote upon.

And all the faith, the virtue of my heart, the object, and the pleasure of mine eye is only Helena.

So he explains to us that he has changed his mind.

He says, he doesn't know what power has done it.

He doesn't know what's changed his mind.

But he said, it's just by some power.

I can't explain it to you.

Dramatic already however, we know what the power is.

We know it's the love potion.

We know that information.

He does not.

He just simply can't give a reason.

And what's really important to note here is that Demetrius now loves Helena.

He States that really explicitly here, he's not cruel about Hermia.

He just doesn't love her anymore.

Despite a patriarchal society, despite Egeus' control over his daughter Hermia that makes no difference because Egeus cannot control Demetrius.

Therefore Hermia can marry Lysander as long as Theseus approves.

She doesn't even need Egeus' approval.

She needs Theseus' approval.

But if Demetrius doesn't want to marry Hermia anymore, then Egeus' plan, can no longer happen.

So in theory, Hermia can marry Lysander Let's introduce a new term, a simile.

So simile is a phrase that uses the words like or as to describe someone or something by comparing it with someone or something else that is similar.

So Demetrius describes how his love for Hermia has changed using the simile melted as the snow.

And that's what we're going to look at a little bit more detail.

So Demetrius describes how his love for Hermia has melted as the snow.

We're going to break this image done.

We're going to talk through it first of all.

And then you're going to have a go at writing about this.

If you'd like to make any notes now you are more than welcome.

Let's break down this simile into our idea of melted and the idea of the snow.

And we need to think when we think about the idea of melted, what does that actually mean? So if something's melted, we can say that it's destroyed.

Can't go back to how it was before it can not be brought back.

And we should know therefore that warmth causes melting.

Something melts when warmth is put upon it.

So take the idea of an ice lolly.

For example, eating an ice lolly.

That ice lolly no matter what luck we have, the slowly always seems to melt before we get to the end.

It melts, it starts dripping onto the ground.

You can't bring it back.

Even if you caught the drips onto a plate, you can't put it back onto the ice lolly.

It doesn't work like that.

It's melted.

It's changed its state.

And that often happens through the warmth of the sun.

We have our ice lollies in the nice sunny, warm weather, and they always seem to melt, but they can never be brought back to exactly as they were before.

So before they melt, you can never bring them right back to where they were.

So once something is melted, it's completely changed its state it's gone from a solid to a liquid.

So it's melted, it's destroyed.

You can't bring it back.

And that change is brought about by warmth.

If we think of the idea of snow.

My most obvious thing that comes to mind is the idea that's really cold.

The idea that it's actually something quite fragile.

So it's very cold and it's very fragile in terms of all it takes is a simple footprint on the snow and it is completely squashed and destroyed.

My favourite thing about the snow is when you get a lovely white blanket of snow and then the urge to run across it.

And the urge to run across and have those footprints across the snow.

That snow is never going to be the same as that fluffy state that it first falls out from the sky with.

It's never stays that perfect white colour to one footprint on it.

One person like me running across and ruining that lovely blanket of snow.

It's never going to be quite the same again.

It's never going to have that soft fluffy texture.

So it's actually very fragile, but it's easily changed.

You can easily change snow from its lovely fluffy fresh state into something that's squashed into something that goes icy.

But it's never going to be quite the same again.

So when we think about how Demetrius' love for Hermia is melted as the snow.

There's this suggestion, therefore, that this love cannot be brought back.

That Demetrius' love for Hermia will never come back.

You can't bring it back.

And perhaps with this image of the cold snow and the warmth that causes melting, maybe then Demetrius feels like Helena has brought this warmth to his life that he didn't have before.

That true feeling where his love is returned from Helena as well.

And that brings a warmth, that cold hearted nature, that piercing, stabbing feeling that he had from unrequited love.

He doesn't now get from Helena.

And the suggestion that snow is quite fragile as well.

Perhaps implies that the love that Demetrius had for Hermia wasn't as strong as he thought it was.

So we've got lots of different ideas around this idea of the simile melted as the snow.

So on your screen, now I've given you your question.

What does Shakespeare's use of the simile melt as the snow suggest about Demetrius' his love for Hermia.

I've given you a sentence starter for your paragraph.

And I've given you some sentence beginnings as well.

This suggests Demetrius feels.

Snow makes us think of.

The word 'melted' implies.

By include the idea of 'snows', Shakespeare might be suggesting.

I've given you some different sentence starters there.

So I would like you to pause your video and have a go at writing your paragraph.

Off you go please.

Excellent work.

I'm sure you've got some amazing paragraphs.

So we're going to have a look now at an example which you can look at alongside your own.

You can edit, add change, anything of yours.

Do any rephrase you'd like to do.

Add in any ideas that you think, oh, I didn't include that in mine.

So let's have a look together.

So here's a good answer.

Shakespeare's use of the simile melted as the snow suggests that Demetrius' love for Hermia has completely gone now that he loves Helena.

Although he doesn't understand how it has happened.

His love for Hermia will never return.

This is emphasised through the word melted.

If something melts it's impossible to return to how it was before.

Demetrius is making clear to Theseus and Egeus that His love for Hermia is destroyed.

This is significant because if Demetrius does not want to marry Hermia, then our options are even more limited, death, a nunnery or be allowed to marry Lysander.

So that's a good answer.

Talks about the simile.

It talks about what it might suggest.

And it thinks about the significance of what Demetrius' saying.

And that's your blue part at the end.

That's the extra bit that we strive for to try and think of the bigger picture of a situation.

Let's look now at some extra points we can include.

If we should so wish.

Snow is cold.

Therefore the comparison between his love for Hermia and snow may imply that his heart was cold before, but Helena has now brought warmth into his life.

This warmth has caused Demetrius' love for Hermia to melt.

He now believes that his love for Helena is real and true.

However, due to Shakespeare's use of dramatic irony.

We know this is due to the love potion.

So that's an extra show off sentence.

Snow is also fragile because it could be changed easily.

It's very easy to change snow from it's pure and white form.

So this implies that Demetrius' love for Hermia was not strong and not designed to last.

So if you'd like to, you can pause your video again now and go back to your paragraph and add in any additional sentences you may wish.

Let's now look at Theseus then and remind yourself of who he is.

He's the Duke of Athens.

He's the voice of law.

He maintains order in Athens and he has authority over the Athenians.

That's his role.

We haven't yet heard his reaction to Lysander.

We've heard Egeus' reaction.

We thought about the significance of that.

And we've then heard how Demetrius has reacted and how Demetrius has revealed his lack of love for Hermia and his new found love for Helena.

Theseus now makes a decision as the Duke.

His voice is law.

You can't argue with him.

He says, fair lovers you are fortunately met.

Of this discourse we more will hear anon.

Egeus, I will overbear your will.

For in the temple, by and by with us, these couples shall eternally be knit.

And for the morning now is something worn or purposed hunting shall be set aside.

Away with us to Athens.

Three and three we'll hold a feast in great solemnity.

So what Theseus now decides is he decides to override Egeus.

He uses his authority and he actually says, I won't hear any more of this conversation.

Any more of this discourse.

I will overbear your will.

So he decides to ignore Egeus.

Egeus has asked that Lysander shall be killed for disobedience.

Remember for Egeus, it was simple.

Homegrown Lysander ran away.

Therefore Theseus should enforce death.

But Theseus chooses to be lenient.

He doesn't choose to punish them.

He doesn't choose to punish them.

He is giving them the opportunity to actually now be together.

And he decides that love not, death shall triumph.

And he helps that happen.

He helps love not death triumph.

So he wants love to win in the end, not death.

He has the power to have Lysander and Hermia killed.

But he chooses not to.

He chooses to let their love triumph, not their deaths.

And therefore Theseus has decided there will be a triple wedding.

So Theseus will marry Hippolyta, Lysander will marry Hermia and Demetrious will be allowed to marry Helena.

And therefore they will not be death.

There will be celebration.

And this fits nicely into our idea of a Shakespearian comedy, having a happy ending.

So in ancient Athens, Theseus allows love to triumph.

He allows Hermia and Lysander to marry.

Oberon allows love to triumph.

He helps Helena's unrequited love.

So both of our leaders, Theseus and Oberon allow love to triumph.

They let love win, And it has to win in the comedy.

It can't resolve to death.

It won't follow conventions of a Shakespearian comedy.

So Theseus allows them to marry and Oberon has helped Helena's unrequited love.

And in helping Helena he's technically helped Demetrius' unrequited love for Hermia also.

We're left with then the idea that disorder creates order.

So let's take ourselves back to our settings.

Remember that could have been a clash.

They could have come together and completely contradicted each other.

They could have fought with the ideas but actually the disorder of the magical forest has brought order and the triumph of love over death in ancient Athens.

So in Athens before, Hermia and Lysander cannot be together.

Demetrius and Helena suffer from unrequited love.

In the magical forest, we have the love potion.

All four lovers are not suffering from unrequited love.

The fairy solve the human's problems. So the fairies fix the problems. Remember Shakespeare is changing the conventions of fairies, how we view them.

We're not to see them as something evil from the devil, something to fear, but actually something that can help humans.

And in Athens now what has changed, which is massively significant to the fact it's a comedy not a tragedy.

Theseus allows Hermia and Lysander to marry.

There is a triple wedding and there are no deaths.

So let's have a look at some key questions then.

So when Lysander explains the events, what does Egeus want to happen? What does Theseus decide? How have the fairies helped the Athenians? So those questions when you are ready, can you pause your video please? And answer those in full sentences.

Off you go.

Excellent work.

Let's check then how disorder creates order.

So, number one, when Lysander explains the events, Egeus wants him killed for trying to defeat him.

He feels as a competition.

Number two, Theseus decides to ignore Egeus' wishes and overrule him because he's the Duke of Athens.

He is the voice of law.

Egeus cannot argue with Theseus.

And number three, the fairies have helped the Athenians by stopping their suffering of unrequited love.

Also they've helped prevent Hermia's death.

They didn't know they'd done that.

But their solution to Helena's problem and helping Helena has actually therefore allowed Hermia and Lysander to be together.

So that brings us to the end of today's learning on the clash of the settings.

Excellent work today, really well done.

Really impressive.

So don't forget to take your quiz at the end and ensure that you really strive for that 100% to showcase all of the amazing learning you've achieved today.

So for me, thank you very much.

Take care and enjoy the rest of your learning.