The document analyzes the setting of places in Shakespeare's play "A Midsummer Night's Dream". It discusses that the play uses three different settings - Athens Palace, the Woods, and the Fairy Kingdom. The Athens Palace represents power and law/order, the Woods symbolize freedom from Athens' laws, and the Fairy Kingdom represents magic. Each setting contributes differently to the plot and characters' stories and has symbolic meaning.

1. SETTING OF PLACE IN “A
MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM”
BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Anastasia Windy Adellia Putri
13020115130088

2. Abstract
This writing entitled “Setting of Place in A
Midsummer Night’s Dream by William
Shakespeare”. The purpose of this writing is to
analyze the setting of places used in the play.
The writer uses setting of place theory and
close reading method. As the result, the writer
finds that Shakespeare used three different
places in the play and each place presents
different story. In conclusion, each place
symbolizes different thing and meaning.
Keywords: setting of place, A Midsummer
Night’s Dream, Shakespeare

3. Summary of the Play
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a comedy play written by
William Shakespeare. It takes place in Athens. The play is about
The Duke of Athens, Theseus, who wants to marry his woman,
Hippolyta by arranging wedding festival. At that time, Egeus and his
daughter, Hermia, comes to the palace. Theseus, whom Egeus is
asking a help, wants Hermia to marry Demetrius. Demetrius is a
man chosen by Egeus. Hermia refuses her father’s order then she
runs away to the wood with her true love, Lysander. In the wood,
there is a fairy king named King Oberon who is fighting with his wife,
Titania. King Oberon, saw Helena and Demetrius in the wood,
orders Puck to sprinkle a love potion to the young lover. However,
Puck was mistaken Lysander to Demetrius which makes the two
young couples are fighting. Oberon was also mistaken when he
sprinkles the love potion to his wife. Titania is falling in love to Nick
Bottom. Chaos ensues and becomes a comedy error. Finally,
Oberon removes the love poison from Titania and Lysander. Duke
Theseus and Hippolyta share their happiness through the wedding
festival with the new lovers.

4. William Shakespeare was born on April 26, 1564. He
was an English poet, playwright, and actor. By 1592,
Shakespeare earned a living as an actor and a playwright in
London and possibly had several plays produced. By the early
1590s, the documents show William Shakespeare was a
managing partner in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, an acting
company in London. By 1597, 15 of the 37 plays written by
William Shakespeare were published. William Shakespeare’s
early plays were written in the conventional style of the day,
with elaborate metaphors and rhetorical phrases that didn’t
always align naturally with the story’s plot or characters.
Shakespeare wrote several comedies like A Midsummer
Night’s Dream, Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing,
As You Like It and Twelfth Night. He also wrote tragedies such
as Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, and Macbeth. Shakespeare
died on April 23 1616.
Biography Of Playwright

5. Setting of Place Analysis
A Midsummer Night’s Dream mainly takes place in
Athens. But, Shakespeare used three different places to
represent every story and some characters in it.
 The Athens Palace (Duke of Athens’s place)
The first act begins by the conversation of Theseus,
The Duke of Athens, and Hippolyta. They are planning their
wedding festival. Then, Egeus and Hermia come to see
Theseus.
Theseus’s place itself symbolizes power of Theseus
and at that time, Athens still ruled by King. Athens also
symbolizes law and order. The purpose of Egeus arrival
was to ask a help from The Duke because his daughter,
Hermia, refused to marry the man Egeus has chosen. A
father can demand death penalty for a disobedient
daughter who refuses to marry the man of his choosing.

6. EGEUS
Full of vexation come I with complaint
Against my child, my daughter Hermia.—
Stand forth, Demetrius.—My noble lord,
This man hath my consent to marry her.—
Stand forth, Lysander.—And my gracious duke,
This man hath bewitched the bosom of my child.—
Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,
And interchanged love tokens with my child.
Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung
With feigning voice verses of feigning love,
And stol'n the impression of her fantasy
With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gauds, conceits,
THESEUS
Take time to pause, and by the next new moon—
The sealing day betwixt my love and me
For everlasting bond of fellowship—
Upon that day either prepare to die
For disobedience to your father’s will,
Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would,
Or on Diana’s altar to protest
For aye austerity and single life. (Act I, scene 1)

7.  The Woods
Because Hermia was forced to marry Demetrius, she with
Lysander ran and escaped into the woods. Here, the woods mean as
the liberty and freedom for Hermia and Lysander. In the woods there
is no rule applied to them. They can freely love each other without
being afraid of Hermia’s father or Theseus’s power. Athens’s law and
order cannot be applied in the woods, too.
LYSANDER
A good persuasion. Therefore, hear me, Hermia.
I have a widow aunt, a dowager
Of great revenue, and she hath no child.
From Athens is her house remote seven leagues,
And she respects me as her only son.
There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee.
And to that place the sharp Athenian law
Cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me then,
Steal forth thy father’s house tomorrow night.
And in the wood, a league without the town—
Where I did meet thee once with Helena
To do observance to a morn of May—
There will I stay for thee. (Act I, scene 1)

8.  The Fairy Kingdom
King Oberon was the king of the
fairies. He lived inside the woods with
her wife, Titania. The fairy kingdom that
used by Shakespeare represents and
symbolizes the magic and the word
‘dream’ itself. From the play, we can
conclude that the magic form the flower-
love poison was the beginning of the
chaos.

9. Conclusion
In the play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”
Shakespeare used three different places. The first
place is in Athens which symbolizes the law and
order. Shakespeare wants to emphasize the
relation between Hermia and Egeus by involving
the law that makes Hermia escaped to the woods
with Lysander. After going to the woods, Hermia
and Lysander felt so free to love each other.
Shakespeare aims to use woods as a symbol of
freedom because the law of Athens cannot be
applied in the woods. And then, in the woods there
also lived Oberon—the King of Fairies—who made
the chaos between the young lovers because his
flower-love poison. In conclusion, every setting of
place forms different flow of story and it must have
significant meaning.