Question

Explore the initial interaction between Titania and Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream. What do we learn about these two characters from this first meeting? In 100-150 words, provide a character analysis of these fairies using examples from Act II to support your claims.

Answer 1

From the first encounter between Oberon and Titania in “A midsummer night’s dream”, we learned that they are husband and wife, king and queen of the Fairies.  But they have rejected each other. Because they have not laid together they have caused a major shift in nature: harvests rot, rivers floods and the cattle die. “…the spring, the summer/ The childing autumn, angry winter, change/ Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world/ By their increase, now knows not which is which/ And this same progeny of evils comes/ From our debate, from our dissension/ We are their parents and original”.

So, they control nature, they are responsible of the seasonal cycle. In order to make up and stop these catastrophes, Oberon asks her to give him the “little changeling boy” she has taken from India, but Titania refuses since she wants to raise him because his mother, who has died, was a votaress of her order.