A Midsummer Night's Dream Deception Essay

Even though the texts, “A Midsummer Night's Dream” by William Shakespeare and “The Princess and the Puma” by O. Henry, were written in different periods, they share a common theme of deception. A Midsummer Night's Dream surrounds the love and chaos of lovers Hermia and Lysander who try to get married, however, get interrupted by Demetrius loving Hermia and Helana loving Demetrius. The “Princess and the Puma” follows Princess Josefa and Ripley Givens. A man who attempts to impress the princess by lying. Both stories use plot, character archetypes, and symbols to develop a theme of deception.

The authors use the plot to develop the theme of deception. In the play, Titania gets deceived by Oberon because he orders Puck to put a love potion into Titania's eyes. He did it because he wanted her attention and wanted the child for himself. This shows that Oberon is deceiving Titania by having her believe she is in love with someone else to get her mind off the little boy. Similarly, in “PAP”, the character Ripley Givens shows the theme of deception by deceiving the Princess into thinking that the Lion is his. The princess pretends to believe him, however, does not and tells her father about the interaction later that day. This shows that deception is shown in the overall plot of both stories.

In “MSND” the trickster, Demetrius, is a sign of deception. Because he is jealous of Lysander, he does some things that are related to lying or deception, therefore, tricking. Similarly, in “PAP”, there is a trickster as well. Ripley Givens tricks and tries to convince Princess Josefa that the lion is from his camp to appear tough and strong. However, that is not true and he is tricking the princess. This shows that both character archetypes- the trickster, show up in “MSND” and “PAP” and relate to the overall theme of