In a fine example of Shakespearean irony, scholars have suggested that A Midsummer Night's Dream was originally written as entertainment for an aristocratic wedding. The Lord Chamberlain's Players treated the noble married couple, the ultimate symbol of harmony and true love, to a delicious comedy about gender conflicts, transformed emotions, myths and magic. Shakespeare avoids the social conventions of the civilized world by introducing a “green world” (Introduction, MND, 808) where fairies reign. It is in this metaphysical world, and its associated suspended disbelief, that he draws on the imagination of myth and magic as a means of exploring the particularities behind human behavior. More importantly, only by accepting the possibility of Puck's love juice or the power of Cupid's arrow can we understand and forgive the intolerable behavior between Demetrius, Lysander, and their scorned lovers. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay As each man switches affections from one woman to another, he hurls brutal verbal insults towards his past love. These irrational and undeserved reprimands build a relationship of “engagement and detachment” with the audience, which is essential to the mechanics of comedy. Audience engagement is invited with the sharing of Lysander and Hermia's escape secrets in Act 1.1; however, the gratuitous and cruel statements that follow in 2.1, 2.2, and 3.2 force the audience to detach or distance themselves from the painful insults, and in doing so, laughter is generated ("Introduction" to MND, 810). The words themselves, despite their disturbing nature, are not primary. It is the tone established between the characters and the resulting sense of injustice that shocks the audience into this powerfully manipulative relationship. The biting remarks made by Lysander and Demetrius highlight several areas of conflict that drive the comedy. To begin with, it is essential that the public accept that such unkind words are a direct result of the power of the metaphysical world. The hierarchy of creation is upside down in this “green world,” and the caustic words and irrational actions of mortals are the direct result of the misdeeds of the fairies. The social conflict is evident by a loss of decorum that occurs when Lysander and Demetrius, gentlemen of the city of Athens, become unjustifiably ruthless in their treatment of their former lovers. The social courtesy expected between a gentleman and a maiden is brought into conflict by Lysander's crude and gratuitous insults when he refers to the innocent Hermia as an Ethiope, a cat, a burr, and a dwarf (3.2). To be considered positive, male dominance must be balanced with his role as protector. When Demetrius threatens to "do [his] evil in the forest" (2.1.237) and the lovesick Helena follows him into the forest, the relationship seems irrevocably damaged. This remark, shared with other thinly veiled threats, forces the audience to explore gender conflict. Not only limited to the stage, a secondary conflict is created between the actors and the audience. When Cupid's powerful arrow causes Demetrius to fall in love with Hermia and abandon Helena, the tone established by his scathing words guarantees audience sympathy. Likewise, Lysander's transformation under the influence of Puck's love juice is dramatic and powerful. His terrible and prolonged reprimand of Hermia in Act 3.2 equates him with Demetrius in the audience's mind. By creating a character type, it becomes,1997.