-   the four lovers and Bottom interact with the fairies’ world there

Examples

After being under the spell of the love potions, Titania, Demetrius and Lysander all had illusions, causing them to have infatuations and love someone that they didn’t love before, with Titania loving a disfigured mortal with an ass head, and the Athenian youths loving someone they don’t care about before.The illusions causes them to be irrational and act abnormal since they are blinded by the illusions of love. After literally waking up from a dream, clearing up the illusions, Titania and Lysander return to their normal selves, even horrified to deem the “illusions” a nightmare.

Although illusions can cause infatuations, love itself can also in turn confuse people, letting them see illusions. Almost all of the main characters in the play claim to know about how other people are blind in love, they themselves are also blinded by the illusions, not knowing that they have fallen into the same trap. For example in the play, Helena accuses Demetrius to be blinded by Hermia’s beautiful appearance, ignorant to her own efforts of pursuit and Hermia’s lack of passion, she herself is blinded by love’s illusion and could not see Demetrius has broken his promise and is actually not worthy of her love and frankly has no interest in her.

Shakespeare also subverts the boundaries of illusion and reality. After waking up from their “dream”, they are unsure about whether the “dream” they experienced is just illusion or reality.

The illusion creates a comedic effect as the potion causes both Demetrius and Lysander to fall in love with Helena, and Titania also falls in love with bottom, who was an ass. This creates complications between characters which makes the scene comical. The illusion also lightens the mood of the play so it doesn’t create a heavy drama. It also brings out the theme of dream and reality as characters swiftly move between illusion and reality under the effect of the love potion. The play within a play blurs the line between illusion and reality, as the characters watching Pyramus and Thisbe are ignorant of the fact that an audience is watching them. This creates a comedic effect as the craftsmen are being judged by the characters ( the lovers ), while they are being judged by the audience

To explore the theme of love:

Shakespeare uses illusion, such as the work of the love potion, to investigate the question of how humans fall in and out of love. Shakespeare shows the inconstancy of love through the effect of the love potion as the characters immediately fall in love with another person. The play also suggests the blindness of love through the comparison of Helena with Hermia, and Demetrius with Lysander. They are equally good in the eyes of other people, but with the illusion of love, the lovers see the one whom they love above another.

The illusion creates plot development. The love potion makes an illusion for the lovers to fall in love with another character, thus creating drama and allowing Shakespeare to make connections and contrasts to the lovers without the effect of the love potion, showing the interchangeability of lovers. Shakespeare also uses illusion to solve the drama by using the potion again to bring the lovers back to peace. This gives the audience and explanation for how the conflict is resolved since the lovers are mere mortals and young  and may not have the ability to resolve the conflict they have made.

Titania, Demetrius and Lysander were all under the influence of a love potion, which made them experience illusion. The craftsmen were also in charge of creating their own illusion in the theatre. 

Titania fell in love with bottom because of the illusion that the potion gives. This in the end made Titania and Oberon get back together, and allows a happy ending for the play. 

Demetrius and Lysander were under influence of the love potion and both fell in love with Helena. The role of illusion here is to create a comical scene. Their confusion and anger in the scene allows some farcical moments and physical comedy. Illusion allows for complications and mixups which ultimately leads to comedy. 

Illusion here also allows the audience to see that love is irrational. It reinforces the fact that love is blind, it may not be under our control and makes people do things they do not usually do, and afterwards be ashamed of it. Here, the male lovers were influenced by magic, and changed their love interest. The fact that they changed love interests so easily allows us to see how interchangeable these characters are. 

Illusion and reality are being compared in this scene. 

Both of these are often mixed up by the characters, for example, the lovers, Bottom and Titania all thought that the experience they had was a dream, but in reality it was not an illusion. The “dream” they had was reality. 

In the play, the craftsmen were responsible for another play. They did not know how theatre works and basic theatre knowledge. Instead, they thought that the illusion they create in the play will be so literal it will be able to fool the nobles into believing that it was reality. To solve this “problem”, they wrote prologues to explain the roles and the context of the play, and also repeatedly steps out of their role to explain this illusion, destroying the illusion that a play is supposed to have. 

The title of the play “A midsummer night’s dream” has the word “dream” in it, hinting that the play will deal with topics of dream and illusion. In the Elizabethan era, the midsummer nights are celebrated with dance and song, but this holiday also involves magic, illusion and even madness. 

The theatre itself is a place for illusion as there is an invisible wall between the actors and the audience. Magic is used in the play, such as the love potion that was being used on the lovers, causing them to fall in and out of love.

The theatre adds support to the illusion of magic, or in other words, the fourth wall, and allows physical comedy along with stage directions in the theatre as Puck chases the lovers away by using magic and pretending to be Demetrius/Lysander, also resolving the conflict between the lovers with the help of the theatre.

By breaking the fourth wall, the actors are breaking the illusion of the play created by magic.

The magic in the play is a message to the audience that everything that happens within the play is just a dream and separates the illusion of the play from the reality of theatre.

In act five, the craftsmen break the fourth wall consistently to create comedic effect since the main conflict has already been resolved and magic is no longer needed. However, in the end, the fairies use the element of magic once again to give blessings to the new couple with the help of change in setting in the theatre.