Hi everyone.

My name is Mr. Chandra Parla and I'm really looking forward to this lesson with you today.

We're gonna be having a look at the character of Egeus in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Egeus is the father of one of our main characters, Hermia, and he is a figure that we've already discussed over the course of this unit because he's an incredibly patriarchal figure, he's a key figure for understanding how the patriarchy works within the text.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how Shakespeare presents him and hearing your fantastic ideas this lesson.

Let's get into it.

So today our outcome for the lesson is going to be to explain how Shakespeare presents the character of Egeus using context.

Our keywords are, as you may have guessed, context, which is just the information about when and why our text was written that helps us understand the text more deeply.

We're also gonna be having a look at the keyword of the supernatural, which is something that can't be explained by the laws of nature.

As I mentioned earlier, he's a key figure of the patriarchy, a patriarchy is a society in which men hold power, the laws and structure of that society prevent women from having power.

We're gonna be discussing the term bewitch, so to put a magical spell on someone.

And it's important to understand that even though Shakespeare is an Elizabethan writer, an Elizabethan playwright, which is just a person who was alive when Elizabeth I was on the throne, and his audience is an Elizabethan one because the first audiences were sort of for A Midsummer Night's Dream was sort of in the 1590s, early 1600s.

The play is set in Athens, but we'll get a little bit into that context in a short moment.

So the first thing that we're gonna be covering today is Elizabethan attitudes towards women and the supernatural.

So in what ways is Hermia presented as a disobedient daughter to Egeus? Pause the video now and talk to the person next to you or maybe just jot down some ideas from what you remember about the plot of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

In what ways is Hermia presented it as a disobedient daughter? When you're ready, hit play.

Really interesting ideas.

I heard a lot of people discussing the fact that Egeus wanted Hermia to marry Demetrius, and the fact that actually Hermia wants to marry Lysander is in itself, like in a moment of disobedience.

Definitely something for us to consider.

Maybe there's something else we can say.

We're gonna reread a section of Egeus's dialogue in Act 1.

So this is from Act 1, as Egeus goes to Theseus and sort of makes the argument about his views of Hermia.

"Full of vexation come I, with complaint against my child, my daughter Hermia.

Stand forth Demetrius.

My noble Lord, this man hath my consent to marry her.

Stand forth Lysander.

And my gracious Duke, this has bewitched the bosom of my child.

Thou, thou, Lysander, thou has given her rhymes and interchanged love tokens with my child.

With cunning hast thou filched, stolen, my daughter's heart, turned her obedience, which is due to me, to stubborn harshness." So here we see Egeus talking to Theseus and sort of referring to Demetrius as my noble Lord.

This man has my consent to marry her.

And then Lysander, who has apparently bewitched the bosom of his child, the heart of Hermia.

So we can see that Egeus here, is angry with Hermia, but he's also angry with Lysander.

What is he therefore accusing Lysander of doing? Looking at that word, bewitched, the bosom of my child and also with cunning has now filched my daughter's heart, turned her obedience into stubborn harshness.

Pause the video now and see if you can work out what he's accusing Lysander of.

When you're ready, hit play.

Some fantastic ideas there, everyone.

So yes, absolutely.

The fact that he accuses Lysander of bewitching Hermia suggests that Lysander puts a spell on her.

And then with cunning hast thou filched with a sort of sly trickery.

Hermia has been sort of taken from Egeus.

Shakespeare, therefore is presenting Egeus as being a really angry father.

And this is actually quite a common trope in a lot of his plays.

For example, in his tragedy, "Othello," a daughter called Desdemona disobeys her father, Brabantio, by marrying a man called Othello.

Brabantio says to Othello, "O thou foul thief, where hast thou stow'd my daughter? Thou has enchanted her." So if we compare that with what Egeus says to Lysander, who has bewitched the bosom of my child, and with cunning has filched my daughter's heart.

What similarities can we see in the way that Egeus and Brabantio here expressed their anger? I want you to try and work out what the similarities are, not only in the way that they feel towards Othello and Lysander respectively, but also in what is the shared common thing that both Othello and Lysander are accused of.

Again, talk to the persons next to you or maybe sketch out some ideas in your notes and when you're ready, hit play.

Excellent ideas there everyone.

So yeah, so we can definitely see that again, there's that suggestion of stealing the daughter, but also using magic, using trickery to somehow get the daughter.

So definitely that a sense that both fathers view their daughters as being stolen from them through sort of supernatural methods.

One reason Shakespeare might be particularly interested in this idea of disobedient daughters and angry fathers is because of Elizabethan attitudes towards women.

So in terms of Elizabethan attitudes towards and about women, there was the feeling that despite the Monarch being a woman, Elizabeth I, Elizabethan women were considered inferior to men.

It was a patriarchal society and that meant that not only were men viewed as being superior to women, but women weren't given the respect that they were, that they are now.

They weren't considered as at all equal in terms of their intelligence, in terms of their knowledge of the world.

And they were often seen as quite naive and innocent.

Elizabethan women were therefore expected to obey men, particularly their fathers.

And eventually when they got married, the idea would be that they would transfer from their father's house to their husband's house.

So they would change the person who was responsible.

The man who was responsible for them would change.

So it would be particularly their fathers initially, and then their husbands would apparently become responsible for them and therefore women would have to obey them.

So fathers would often control who their daughters married, passing the control of the daughters over to their husband upon marriage.

So similar to what I was saying earlier, the control of the daughter went to the husband upon marriage, but that first bit fathers would control who the daughter's married becomes a really important thing.

Often this would be done for reasons around business or trade or commerce rather than who the daughter actually preferred.

This information is called context that can help develop our understanding of characters and ideas in a play.

So why might an Elizabethan audience think Egeus's anger at Hermia is justified? Pause the video now and see using this context if you can explain why Egeus's anger may be considered as justified for an Elizabethan audience, even though we as a modern audience may not feel quite the same way.

When you're ready, hit play.

Some lovely discussions there everyone, and I really liked how people were trying to get really specific with the focus on the context and looking at specific moments of the play.

I think that's a really smart move to be making.

And already you're starting to realise that Shakespeare's using context in the way that he or has allowed context to influence how he presents certain characters in the work.

So we've got a couple of ideas here.

Sam wants to clarify something.

"Wait, A Midsummer Night's Dream is set in Athens way before the Elizabethan period," it's set in ancient Athens.

"Why would I need to know about Elizabethan attitudes?" Maybe Lucas can help us out.

So as Lucas points out, "Shakespeare was an Elizabethan and so were the play's first audiences.

So we need to consider how he might be entertaining, challenging, or connecting to his audience!" I like to think about this with my characters as almost thinking about Athens as almost the setting of this work, but really what Shakespeare is doing is he's kind of detaching it from sort of a Elizabethan audience as major context like a setting of London.

But then he's saying like, "You know what? "They still had certain maybe ideals that are similar to ours." And so he's trying to almost import Elizabethan attitudes into a sort of more ancient setting.

So we're just gonna have a quick check for understanding here.

Why is it useful to know about Elizabethan society and attitudes when reading A Midsummer Night's Dream? Is it A, because it's when the play is set? B, it's when the play was first performed.

C, Shakespeare was an Elizabethan.

Or D, the characters are Elizabethans.

Select whichever options you feel or option you feel is best.

And when you're ready, hit play.

Well done everyone, really good work.

Checking back through our notes so we know that actually it's B and C.

The play was first performed in the Elizabethan period and Shakespeare was an Elizabethan.

The characters are not Elizabethans, they are Athenians and the play isn't set during the Elizabethan period.

In fact, it's set in Athens during sort of ancient Athens period, which in Greek period even.

So, Egeus and Brabantio here don't just accuse Lysander and Othello of stealing their property.

Instead they also accuse them of using the supernatural.

So we saw these two parts of the text earlier.

Notice how Brabantio says, "Thou has to enchanted her." Which very similar to how Lysander is accused of having bewitched the bosom of Hermia by Egeus.

Elizabethans had some important beliefs about the supernatural.

So this is another way that Shakespeare's connecting to his Elizabethan audience.

Elizabethan attitudes towards and about the supernatural included the belief that because the church and the legal profession claimed the supernatural was evil and connected to the devil, there was a really negative view of the supernatural from Elizabethan audiences.

So how might an Elizabethan audience react to Egeus's accusation that Lysander "bewitched" Hermia? How do you think Egeus's accusation is going to make an audience immediately feel about Lysander? Pause the video now and see if you can come up with any ideas.

When you're ready, hit play.

Lovely work there everyone.

Yeah, I think it's really good to be saying that the idea that he's bewitched her immediately, we may feel suspicious of Lysander, we're going to need to know this character a little bit better before we can fully trust him.

But definitely there will be some element of the audience that is sympathetic to Egeus because that would've been the more prevalent or prominent view of the world that actually he, as a father is meant to be the patriarchal figure and therefore should be supported in some way.

So what contextual information might help us understand how Egeus expresses his anger in Act 1? Is it option A, Elizabethan attitudes towards the supernatural? Option B, Elizabethan attitudes towards women.

Option C, Elizabethan attitudes towards Shakespeare.

There may be two options which you want to go for here, but pause the video now and see if you can select which options are most helpful.

When you're ready, hit play.

Well done everyone, really good spot, it is A and B.

The Elizabethans would've had some kind of attitude towards Shakespeare, but it's not really their attitudes towards Shakespeare that would've really mattered here for how they would've understood Egeus's anger in Act 1.

So we're just gonna practise applying all of this wonderful newfound knowledge and I want you to answer the following questions in full sentences.

In each of the responses, you are going to want to use the keywords on the side, so Elizabethan, patriarchal or supernatural.

And you may want to use actually a number of them over the course of your response.

So question 1 is why would an Elizabethan audience consider Hermia a disobedient daughter? Option 2, how does Shakespeare show that Egeus thinks that what Lysander has done is evil? And option 3, why might Shakespeare have included disobedient daughters, and references to the supernatural in his plays? Pause the video now and answer each of those three questions in your notes in full sentences using the keywords.

Once you're ready, hit play.

Fantastic work there, everyone really careful checking back.

And I really liked the way that people were going and using the keywords, making sure that they had a really clear understanding of them.

Let's take some feedback.

So Sam's response to one of the questions is below.

So he's answered, why would an Elizabethan audience consider Hermia a disobedient daughter? And he said, "An Elizabethan audience would consider Hermia a disobedient daughter because Elizabethan society was strictly patriarchal, and unmarried daughters were expected to obey their fathers.

Fathers often chose a daughter's husband for them.

Egeus has done this, choosing Demetrius and Hermia actively fights against it," by wanting to marry Lysander.

Here we can clearly see that Sam has used full sentences and made sure to include not just one of the key words but all of the key words.

I want you to self-assess your own responses and I want you to make sure that you've written in full sentences and you've made sure to include at least one of the keywords in each of your responses.

Pause the video now and make sure you've done that.

If you haven't changed your answer in a different colour panel.

Fantastic, really careful reflection there, everyone, that's really going to help us in the future.

Well done.

Let's keep moving.

So we're now going to start writing about Egeus's language using context.

So Lucas writes an answer to this question.

How does Shakespeare present Egeus in Act 1? Lucas has said, "Shakespeare presents Egeus as a patriarch in Act 1.

He says that Hermia's "obedience" is "due to" him because he is her father.

This idea that Hermia should do what her father wishes reflects typical Elizabethan attitudes towards the status of women in society." Lucas has definitely included contextual ideas in his answer and his context develops his exploration of his quotations.

His quotations are including "obedient" and "due to" which are in those speech marks.

But then we can see the contextual ideas, can't we? In this idea that Hermia should do what her father wishes reflects typical Elizabethan attitudes towards the status of women in society.

So we can see that relevant context is being applied to understanding those quotations.

Lucas writes another answer to this question.

How does Shakespeare present Egeus in Act 1? His second answer starts, "Shakespeare presents Egeus as furious in Act 1.

He believed that Lysander has "bewitched" his daughter." He stopped there.

Maybe he's halfway finished through his answer, but what contextual ideas could we suggest to him to help develop his response? Pause the video now, maybe look back through your notes and see what you would maybe suggest to Lucas that would be relevant for this particular answer so far.

Incredible work there everyone.

So pleased that so many of you were going back to our, or remembering Elizabethan attitudes towards the supernatural.

So you might have discussed Elizabethans had strong beliefs about the supernatural connecting it to evil and the devil.

The word "bewitched "conveys how harmful and dangerous Egeus believes Lysander is.

So we're just gonna check our understanding here.

True or false, you can include context in order to develop your ideas about "A Midsummer Night's Dream".

Real head scratcher, pause the video now and select true or false.

Once you're ready, hit play.

Excellent work there everyone.

That is very much true.

Can we justify our answer now? Is it because you could refer to Othello, but not ideas about Elizabethans because the play isn't set in Elizabethan England? Or is it because you could refer to ideas about Elizabethan England because Shakespeare was an Elizabethan writing for an Elizabethan audience.

We've definitely talked about both Othello and the Elizabethans here, but which one is correct? Pause the video now and when you're ready, hit play.

Well done.

You are absolutely correct.

It is B, the play is written by Shakespeare who is an Elizabethan author.

It's written for an Elizabethan audience, Othello, not really necessary context here.

It's helpful for us as a modern audience, but maybe not something that actually that Elizabethan audience is going to be thinking about so much.

So we're gonna practise applying our knowledge here.

I want you to reread Egeus's speech from Act 1 lines 22 to 45, and I then want you to answer the question, "How does Shakespeare present Egeus?" You need to make sure to include context as part of your response.

To help you, you may want to use Lucas's two topic sentences.

They're down below.

So Shakespeare presents Egeus as a patriarch in Act 1 and Shakespeare presents Egeus as furious in Act 1.

You could choose to answer using one of those topic sentences or you could write a paragraph on each.

Crucially, you'll need to make sure that you're using the context in the box, which is Elizabethan attitudes towards the supernatural and Elizabethan attitudes towards women.

Make sure that when you are answering, you're choosing the correct relevant context to help support your ideas.

Pause the video now and start answering that question.

Remember, you need full sentences using those topic sentences to help you.

Off you go.

Lovely work there everyone.

Some really excellent ways of looking back at the text, choosing really key precise quotations to help us.

And then thinking really carefully about what the most relevant context is.

I'm really impressed.

So we've got Sam's response here.

"Shakespeare presents Egeus as a man who feels he has been betrayed in Act 1.

He says that Demetrius has his "consent" to marry Hermia, but that Lysander has "filched" Hermia's heart.

Elizabethans believed that their a father should have a strong say in who their daughters married, to the idea that Egeus does not "consent" to Hermia's marriage to Lysander is very important.

Elizabethans would've believed that Egeus's rights as a father have been betrayed." Now we're gonna just check that Sam has included his context here.

Pause the video now and see if you can find where he has specifically used it.

Once you found it, hit play.

Great work there.

So we can see that actually Sam is using context when he says that Elizabethans believed that a father should have a strong saying who their daughter's married.

And even when he talks about the fact that Elizabethans would've believed that Egeus's rights as a father had been betrayed.

He's even linked that specifically to the moment where Egeus does not consent to Hermia's marriage.

So he's really carefully linking it back to moments in the play.

So I want you to self-assess your own response now and identify where you have included context in your own response.

You may want to just underline that in a different colour, just so it's really clear where you've used context.

Pause the video now and start underlining.

If you haven't included that context, make sure to add it in a different colour pen so you know for next time that you've added it.

Cracking works there, everyone.

Really careful understanding, and I'm so glad that so many of you were going back to our specific knowledge of the supernatural, specific knowledge about Elizabethan attitudes towards patriarchal.

And so many of you were using that idea of the Elizabethans, you were then linking it back to a specific part of the text, which is really going to help you in the future.

Great stuff.

So we're just going to summarise our knowledge on the presentation of Egeus from this passage.

So "A Midsummer Night's Dream" was first performed to an Elizabethan audience and the Elizabethans believed women should obey their husbands and fathers.

And they also believe that the supernatural was evil, which is why Lysander is such a threat and why Egeus uses the language of Shakespeare presents Egeus using the language that he does, that he steals Hermia and also has enchanted her, bewitched her.

Shakespeare included ideas about the patriarchy and the supernatural in his place as a way to connect to his audiences.

So when writing about A Midsummer Night's Dream, we need to make sure that we include context to help develop our ideas and inferences.

You've all done really well, not only understanding a key part of the text to help you understand the character, but then using all your contextual knowledge, which you've learned this lesson to help understand the character.

You've done some really impressive writing and thinking today.

I've been so impressed.

Thank you so much for all your hard work and I'm really looking forward to working with you again soon.

Bye for now.