A Midsummer Night’s Dream features many instances of transformation in the narrative; these cases of change bring up questions of perception and selfhood or identity in the narrative. The various transformations in Dream may amount to a motif more than a theme; the following compiles a list of the various instances of transformation or change:
- Hermia’s personality, as appeared, changes from obedient and polite, “I do entreat your Grace to pardon me. / I know not by what power I am made bold” (1.1.60-61), to hot-tempered and violent in Act III, Scene 2.
- Helena’s attitude in pursuing Demetrius changes, from active pursuit in Act I, Scene 1, to distrust at Demetrius’s “mockery” in Act III, Scene 2.
- Lysander changes from loving Hermia to loving Helena in Act II, Scene 2, and back again at the end of Act III, Scene 2.
- Demetrius changes from pursuing Hermia to pursuing Helena in Act III, Scene 2.
- In Act I, Scene 2, Bottom tries on the acting roles of, variously, Hercules, Pyramus, Thisbe, and the lion.
- In Act III, Scene 1, Bottom physically changes to having an ass-head and back to a human head in Act IV, Scene 1.
- A “changeling” boy exists in the narrative, which carries connotations of substitution or a fickle or inconstant person.
- It changes from night to day between Act 3 and Act 4.
- The setting changes from Athens, to the woods, back to Athens, over the course of the play.
- Titania starts doting on Bottom in Act III, Scene 1, and she changes from loving Bottom to start to love Oberon on Act IV, Scene 1.
- Theseus changes his mind on the course of actions regarding Hermia’s marriage between Act I, Scene 1 and Act IV, Scene 1; by consequence, the society of Athens appears transformed into a just one by the end of the play.
With each of these changes, the question persists whether the change is substantive or apparent. For example, regarding Demetrius’s love, one may question whether he truly loves Helena, or whether he is simply under the spell of the “love-in-idleness” flower. Regarding Athens as a reformed society, one may question whether Athens has truly changed, whether duke Theseus has learned anything or undergone any transformation as a ruler. These questions of change become questions of transformations when one considers whether one’s nature or state of being has changed.
The question, thus, of perception versus reality in one’s state of being, have implications for one’s selfhood or sense of identity. For example, regarding Hermia’s “I would my father looked but with my eyes” (1.1.58), Hermia’s sense of reality is through the perspective she has; she has her way of seeing the world, and her father’s his own particular way—and they’re identity is each bound up their own perspective, a perspective that the play subsequently scrambles. In the course of the play, Hermia, for example, sees her reality shift from Lysander loving her to not loving her; for a moment, while the other three lovers in the forest seem to hate her, her self-esteem begins to change, and she questions her identity:
What, can you do me greater harm than hate?
Hate me? Wherefore? O me, what news, my love?
Am not I Hermia? Are not you Lysander?
I am as fair now as I was erewhile.
Since night you loved me; yet since night you left
me.
Why, then, you left me—O, the gods forbid!—
In earnest, shall I say? (3.2.283-290)
Dream is a testament to how our perception of ourselves is largely dependent on what others think of us.