Midsummer night's dream

            Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," shows the use of "play" to simultaneously disguise and transmit essential but unpalatable truths. Through Shakespeare's work, we see that "play" displaces the concrete to the highly abstract, the human to the animal, the tragic to the comedic, and the clear and present to the indistinct and far away. Through this process of displacement, the surface is re-worked and disguised, leaving core associations and truths unmarred. In particular, Shakespeare uses play to convey a controversial commentary about the stark power relationships between the sexes that lie beneath the apparently benign concept of romantic love.
             In the first scene of act I, Shakespeare introduces us to the patriarchal world of the court. Here, Theseus says, "Hippolyta, I woo"d the with my sword, and won thy love doing thee injuries." (I.i.16-17) Now the OED defines "woo" as "to court" or "to move or invite by alluring means." However, from this passage, we can see that Theseus does not use "alluring means" to court Hippolyta, but instead uses a warlike approach to forcefully appropriate her love. And therefore, we see that Theseus uses the benign, amorous image of a romantic courtship to describe what is in fact, the bellicose reality of love in his court. There is, then, a stark contrast between the characters conception of the nature of love in the court and its reality.
             The unmasking of this hypocrisy is accomplished through the devices of "play". In the next scene, the actors meet to discuss the play Pyramus and Thisbe. In this scene, Bottom asks, "Who is pyramus? A lover, or a tyrant?" (I.ii.22) This question clearly parallels the question about the nature of Theseus himself. Quince responds by saying that Pyramus is, "a lover, that kills himself most gallant for love." (I.ii.24) Here we see that in this play, Pyramus proves his love to Thisbe not by hurting her, but by hurting himself, thereby following the traditional narrative of romantic courtship, or "woo".