This essay talks about how fairies help people to explain the unexplainable and how plays help bring fairies to life using a "Midsummer Night's Dream"

Essay by moonriseCollege, UndergraduateA+, March 2003

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Myth! Power! Beauty! Magic! Mystery! These words describe a race of creatures that only a few have claimed to see, fairies. Some people believe fairies to be an instrumental part in helping humans to understand and conceive of reality. In a Midsummer Night's Dream, fairies play an important part in shaping the romantic lives of two young couples. With their help and intervention, occurrences that may have been inconceivable otherwise become obvious because it is clear what part the fairies have played in the unsuspecting couple's lives. Fairies help people to understand, explain and sometimes accept the unnatural and in doing this and are plays are the door that opens the human mind to this possibility.

In folklore, fairies are believed to be mythical creatures in human form with the power of magic and enchantment. This belief has existed from the earliest times. Literature all over the world has tales of fairies and their relation to humans.

What may differ from story to story and from people to people are the descriptions of how fairies look and act. Some Christians believed that fairies were the ancestors of the ancient pagan gods who were hostile because they were replaced by newer deities. Others thought they were the gods and goddesses of nature because of the location many often chose to live. And still some believed fairies to be the souls of the dead; this idea may be able to explain why fairies are similar to human beings. Among their many faces, fairies have been described to be wizen-faced old men to beautiful enchantresses who have wooed men to their doom. Although these images and descriptions show fairies as evil, mischievous and malicious, there are many other ideas of what fairies are and with these ideas come a much softer, kinder...