A Midsummer Night's Dream Puck (a.k.a. Robin Goodfellow) Quotes

In the Epilogue to A Midsummer Night's Dream, Puck encourages the audience to think of Shakespeare's play as nothing "but a dream." Why make such a comparison?  Like dreams, plays aren't real— they're the product of imagination and fantasy and involve the momentary suspension of reality.  

Remember when we said that A Midsummer Night's Dream restores social order by reinstating traditional gender hierarchies?  Well, here's the evidence.  By sloshing the magic love juice in Titania's eyes, Oberon manages to make the Fairy Queen 1) fall in love with the ass-headed Bottom, and 2) give up her foster child to Oberon.  In other words, Oberon wins the battle of the sexes by humiliating Titania and stripping her of the mother-son relationship she enjoyed with the little "changeling" boy. 

Puck draws attention back to the darkness of the play.  In the courtly world, the feuds have ended, the lovers have all wed, and everything seems to be moving toward a happily-ever-after. Puck reminds us, though, that another reality still exists, one where nighttime is not for lovemaking and fairies, but for terrifying animals and the dead.  Puck is the perfect candidate to make this reminder, as he is neither fairy nor human, but one who straddles both worlds and thus has an arguably more objective perspective about each of their versions of reality.

Puck's final speech is a good indication of where Shakespeare was in his writing career. This is not the best storyline he has created, but he writes it when he is at the peak of his comic form.  In this way, it is a frothy piece, but beautifully written and worthwhile for that reason.  While it does not meet the high standards of drama that his tragedies do, he would like to present it to you as a dream, which excuses him from creating a moving and amazing storyline and lets him just revel for a bit in the magic of his art as a poet.

When Puck dumps the love juice in the wrong guy's eyes, we're reminded that even fairies are prone to foolish mistakes.

Though the Athenian lovers are suffering, for an observer like Puck, the lovers' foolishness is source of entertainment.

Puck lists off a group of truly fearsome things, but you'll note that none of them are magic. They are all little terrors that abound in nature.  Nature itself, without the aid of magic, can be terrifying to humans.

Puck quips that he is setting matters back to their natural state.  However, there is a hint of inequality about the natural states here.  Men "take" their "own" women, and men shall have their "mares" to ride. The natural state here is not just one of love, but also of masculine ownership of women.  It is about the nature of the pastoral too—when women are in the wood, they gain a certain amount of freedom that they would not have at court. Once the young women go back to Athens—though they will return with their respective loves—they will leave behind some of their freedom and equality.  In Shakespeare's day, this ownership was part of a woman's "natural state."

It is important to note that the fairy is not talking about magic here, but about the natural world.  The magic is not about what the fairies do to nature, but about the beauty they see in it instead.  In this way, the wood makes for the perfect pastoral, as it's magical and beautiful by the very nature of its setting.

Puck's magic is less mean-spirited than mischievous.  He likes to play practical jokes that have the same homespun, playful nature of the villagers he teases.  Most importantly, his magic, though naughty, is not wicked.  The point is to make people be merry, as laughter is its own kind of magic.

Puck reminds us that there is more than just white magic and the natural world's beauty. For the ghostly dead spirits, the night is not a time of merriment, but a good time to hide themselves in shame from the light of day. The supernatural element of black magic is not central to the play, but is still used as yet another way to contrast different worlds.