A Midsummer Night's Dream

The magical events of A Midsummer Night’s Dream take place in the forest—a place English folklore (e.g., the Robin Hood legend) strongly associates with the suspension of human law and hierarchy. The woods outside Athens thus symbolize the chaotic power of nature as it exists beyond the boundaries and the rules of the city.

At the beginning of the play, the forest is in disarray; even the fairies, who appreciate disorder and chaos, are beginning to worry that the forest is even more disorderly and chaotic than normal. The disagreement between Titania and Oberon filters down through the ranks of the other fairies and disrupts the balance of the natural world. According to Titania, Oberon’s “jealousy” and moodiness have “disturbed [the fairies’] sport” (2.1.87) and caused a cascade of strange weather events:

Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,

As in revenge have sucked up from the sea

Contagious fogs which, falling in the land,

Hath every pelting river made so proud

That they have overborne the continents (2.1.88-92).

Puck talks to other fairies who are worried about the implications of the disagreement, knowing that the woods are home to a powerful form of magic that could deeply affect their lives. When the Athenians arrive in the woods, this untamed power affects and changes them. For example, Puck’s magic and the wildness of the forest itself combine to drive Bottom’s companions to panic when they see their transfigured friend: “Their sense thus weak, lost with their fears thus strong, / Made senseless things begin to do them wrong. / For briers and thorns at their apparel snatch” (3.2.27-29).

The symbolic meaning of the forest extends to the plants and animals within the woods. Flowers especially appear alongside fairies and magic, to the point where the fairies use a flower to make a love potion. These flowers are part of the forest, representing the closeness between the fairies and the magical world. The fairies know how to use magic and how to use the flowers; their knowledge makes them more at home in the forest than the Athenians, who barely acknowledge the nature that surrounds and affects them. Titania weaving flowers into Bottom’s hair is a metaphor for the fairies’ relationship to the forest: they know how to use the world around them, applying the forest and its magic to the Athenians for their own enjoyment.