The Motif of the Moon in A Midsummer Night's Dream

The Motif of The Moon:

The moon is associated with many different subjects in literature. Shakespeare chose the moon as one of his main and most significant motifs in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. A motif is a reoccurring idea that establishes or elaborates on a story’s subject.
The moon connects with the many aspects of love, ties in with the world of illusions, and represents the power of women.
One main subject that deals with the moon in this play is love. The moon is often affiliated with people in love as in this tale. For couples such as Hermia and Lysander, they associate the moon and night as a time to be together and hide from Athenian law and society. Lysander reveals that “tomorrow night when Phoebe doth behold her silver visage in the watery glass, decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass, a time that lovers’ flights doth still conceal”(7). When Phoebe, the goddess of the moon, comes out it is a time for forbidden couples’ ...