1. Discuss the setting of Midsummer Night. Why does Shakespeare choose Athena instead of England as the background of the play? What plots and designs does Shakespeare use to remind the audience of English society? What is the significance of the forest in the play?

2. Discuss the different views toward love and marriage in the play. How is Theseus' view of marriage? How is his view different from Hiopplyta's and Egeus'? How is Hermia's view of marriage different from Lysander's? How are Oberon's and Titania's? Does the play raise the question toward the romantic view of love?

3. Discuss the transfiguration of minds and shape. How does transfiguration play to disturb the lovers and to resort their love? What is the importance of Puck in the play? How does he dominate the nature and the fate of mortals?

4. There are a play within the play and a dream within the dream in Midsummer Night. Discuss their significances. How do the play within the play and the dream within the dream construct the idea of "I see these things with parted eye, when everything seems double"(4.1.188-189) and the play as "no more yielding but a dream" (5.1.428)?

5. What role do Theseus and Hippolyta play in Midsummer Night? What is the significance of the fact that they are absent from the play's main action?