Dream Country

I haven't read any graphic novels outside this class, so I'm unsure if many others have taken Shakespeare on, and how they compare to the original.  Anyway, from what I've seen/read so far in Dream Country, Gaiman is sort of faithful to A Midsummer Night's Dream.  Right away, however, we see something I don't remember in the play, with Oberon and Titania meeting with a "shaper" who has "arranged" the story.  Another thing I found interesting following this is that the events of A Midsummer Night's Dream are actually acted out as a play by the characters.  This is about as far as I've gotten so far, but I find this very peculiar.

Oberon and Titania

Wow, this one was pretty hard to follow, what with all the complicated relationships and all. My head hurts.

Anyway, the relationship between Oberon and Titania is interesting. They are clearly husband and wife, or at least a pair that loves each other. From the stuff I read from the links in Shannon's blog, I figured out Oberon is the leader of the fairies, and he's angry with insubordinate Titania. This stems from her refusal to give up a "changeling" boy to him to be one of his henchmen.

How does he deal with such insubordination? He gets Puck to put a spell on Titania that results in her falling in love with the next person/thing she sees, and we all know how that works out. Hilarity ensues, and after Oberon feels he's humiliated Titania enough through her attraction to a half-man half-donkey, he returns things back to normal.

And that is only one part of the whole Puck-doing-Oberon's-bidding-by-putting-spells-on-people angle of the play. I would talk about the others, but I think my head would explode.

Thesis

Sorry I wasn't in class to do this today. I forgot to set my alarm. Anyway, I think I want to build upon something I've written about extensively, and that would be the role of Chin-Kee in American Born Chinese. I will argue, hopefully using reviews of the work for support, that Chin-Kee is a tool employed by the author to let the reader know they are viewing a farce or charade. Said farce is, of course, Jin's denial of his identity.

So tentatively, that's what I'm doing. It could change if I don't find sufficient sources to aid my argument.