Throughout the play, a definite tone of domineering masculinity prevails. Theseus underlines this concept when he says to Hermia; “To you your father should be as a god,/One that composed your beauties, yea, and one/To whom you are but as a form in wax,/By him imprinted, and within his power/To leave the figure or disfigure it./Demetrius is a worthy gentleman” (1.1.47-52). Theseus creates a false sense of man's ownership of women. Rather than obediently abide by her father and Theseus' wishes, Hermia decides to run away with Demetrius, clearly expressing her wishes to marry whom she pleases with no regard whatsoever to Athenian law. The headstrong attitude of women in A Midsummer Night's Dream completely undermines the chauvinistic one the men try to project. To Theseus' earlier statement of a father's control of his daughter's destiny, Hermia flippantly replies, “So is Lysander” (1.1.53). Instead of displaying fear in front of Theseus, she stands her ground in the name of her true love for Lysander. Theseus continues to threaten her, carefully picking his words to best frighten her; “Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice,/You can endure the livery of a nun,/For aye to be in shady cloister mewed,/To live a barren sister all your life” (1.1.69-72). Theseus' use of the word “barren” rather than “chaste” in describing the possible lifestyle that lies ahead of Hermia, adds a more daunting tone to his speech emphasizing the obvious differences between men and women.

In the woods, Shakespeare highlights blatant differences between nature's elemental components as well. For example, the several references to the moon's powerful sway in relation to subjects concerning love and other passionate emotions such as anger, violence, and possession, contrasts to daylight's warm ability to literally shed light on matters and clear up confusion. “Helen, to you our minds we will unfold/Tomorrow night, when Phoebe doth behold/Her silver visage in the wat'ry glass,/Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass/(A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal,/Through Athens' gates we have devised to steal” (1.1.208-213). Demetrius and Hermia's plan their passionate escape for nightfall, when emotions peak and shadows obscure all reasonable vision. Towards the end of the play, all the lovers seek only to sleep until daybreak, when confusing matters will resolve themselves and all will return to normal; “Come, thou gentle day./For if but once thou show me thy gray light,/I'll find Demetrius and revenge this spite” (3.2.418-420). Lysander looks to the promise of daybreak as means to settle the pandemonium Puck and Oberon create amongst the lovers. Helena too finds comfort in the approaching day; “O weary night, O long and tedious night, /Abate thy hours. Shine comforts from the east, /That I may back to Athens by daylight” (3.2.431-433). Helena feels mocked and assaulted by the on-goings of the night and yearns for daybreak, something familiar and certain, to resolve the issues.

The mischievous Puck and his master Oberon operate by night. Their world, one full of fairies, fantasy, and potent potions, coincides perfectly with the shifting shadows and concealing darkness of the night. Where the mortals in the play ultimately desire daybreak, the fairies relish the nighttime as a stage for their impish magic. Toying with the concept of dreaming at night, Shakespeare presents the fairies, in particular Puck, as the masterminds behind dreams, as mortals are disadvantaged during their sleep. Bottom admits to this disadvantage in his closing speculation on the night's proceedings; “I have had a/dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was. /Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream” (4.1.203-205). Puck continues his pieced-together logic with a stark contradiction; “I will get Peter Quince to write a/ballet of this dream” (4.1.212-213) that ironically underscores man's lack of sound reason and analysis.

Shakespeare explores the deeply passionate and somewhat forbidden aspect of love through symbolic tainting and discoloring of flowers. Flowers, commonly thought of as a symbol for fertility and purity, become corrupt when “[Cupid]…loosed his love shaft smartly from his bow, /As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts. /But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft/Quenched in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon,/…fell upon a little western flower,/Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound” (2.1.159-167). The visual imagery in this passage relates to the deep passion of the mortal world and the fairies' interference in that world. Shakespeare's use of the word “fiery” to describe Cupid's bow illustrates the passion behind the act of falling in love. The violent nature of love, closely intertwined with passion, shows in the purple coloring of the once white untouched flower. The resulting potion represents the instability of love as well as its power to completely envelop those who fall victim to it. Oberon's act of rubbing the juice of this flower on one's eyes to induce deep, true love shows the fairy king's ignorance regarding love and the ease with which he plays with human emotion.

The darkest aspect of love comes through in the competitive nature of Hermia and Helena when fighting over Lysander and Demetrius. The retorts between them evolve to an immature exchange of petty insults about physical stature and appearances; “And are you grown so high in his esteem/Because I am so dwarfish and so low? /How low am I, thou painted maypole? Speak! /How low am I? I am not yet so low/But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes” (3.2.294-298). The violence nature of love almost conquers all reason in this scene as the women let their anger develop.

The dark aspect of love causes a meddlesome intrusion on its truer form overwhelm the characters in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Each character battles to overcome this interference, all the while staying true to Shakespeare's shrewd claim that “The course of true love never did run smooth…Making it momentary as a sound,/Swift as a shadow, short as any dream” (1.1.134-144).

They air is now tainted by a slight smell which quickly becomes a fetid stench. The walls are still closing in and the air is heating up, making the stench almost too much to bear. Closer and closer, the wall advances upon me. My fear rises proportionately with the wall's advance. The air is becoming hotter and hotter. Sweat breaks out upon my brow, and claustrophobia starts its diabolical, inexorable advance within my mind. The walls are almost touching me now. I can feel the heat from them. It is white, freezing, red-hot, stinging, dull, razor sharp pain. It is so uncomfortable it is enjoyable. The claustrophobia and the stench are almost over-whelming now.

I try to breathe but I am underwater. Looking up, I see the surface. I quickly swim towards it, only to find it is covered with floating blocks of concrete. Beating futilely against them, I can sense impending danger behind me. Looking back, all I see is mud stirred up by a large creature. It is looking at me. I can feel its eyes upon me. They seem to bore into the back of my head. Beating against the concrete, I scream and yell, using up the last of the oxygen in my lungs. Defeated now, I hang, suspended in the water. Slowly, oh so slowly, I begin to sink towards the inky black morass below me. Finally, I have to breathe and, giving in to all inherent instincts, I fill my lungs with water/air. My eyes flick open. I'm lying in my bed, completely soaked in sweat, and puffing like a triathlon competitor who has just finished the race of his life. It was all a dream, I tell myself. Just a stupid dream. The dream that has been haunting me every night since I was ten years old...

He was standing on a pavement, on a street, in front of some sort of building. The top half of the building was pale yellow and had windows that had many smaller panes of glass encased by a white wooden frame. The bottom half was black, a deep black, like oil and had a wooden shell. Just below the division of these two colours were the words “The Drop Inn,” painted in dark gold. As his eyes cascaded down the building they abruptly stopped as they reached the door. A sign on one of the glass panes had the word “ENTER,” printed on it. He walked in a straight line as he had been standing directly across from the doorway. He reached his withered hand out for the door but just as his fingers met the dead wood the door was ripped open from the other side and there stood a man with thick black rimmed glasses and dirty yellow teeth. The mans lips moved as if to speak, but he hesitated, as if the words that trembled his throat seized up and retreated back down, into his stomach. He shuffled his feet then began to walk and as he brushed past he said, as if to himself, “goodnight Paddy,” and then he was gone into the stillness of the night.

The door stood open in front of him as the stranger had left it so. He wandered in unaware of what lay inside yet he wasn't scared or hesitant. The pub had no peculiar design. To the left was the bar and to the right there were tables and chairs. The bar turned to the left at the end and behind there were a few more tables and chairs. The place was empty except for two elderly gentlemen who were seated at the end of the bar. A man then appeared from behind the bar, “hello sir, why don't you take seat”. His voice was soft and gentle and as the words left his mouth his hand motioned downwards resting just at his waist. The man standing in front of him looked down to his left and there was a stool and in his own time he sat down, circling the stool once for assurance. A voice then stirred at the other end of the bar with the words “give Paddy one on me Stephen,” yet this was met with “ah Tommy will ya get out of that sure there is enough in the jar to get an elephant hammered,” and as these words were spoken, Stephen Sorrow, manager of this fine establishment reached under the bar and produced a large glass jar. The jar was three quarters full with money, both coins and notes, and it all rose just above a white label that read “PADDYS MEMORY,” in big blue letters. People had been so kind since the alzheimers had destroyed his father, it had restored his faith in God.

Paddy was sitting on the stool, mouth open, taking everything and nothing in as his son poured him his first of seven nightly pints of Guinness. Seven was the magic number, Stephen had discovered, to entice the memories into his head, to allow him to look at his son as a loved one and not a stranger. Paddy drank the pints quickly as if he had forgotten he had just taken a swig as his lips dived back for the rim of the glass. The disease had taken over his mind two years earlier after the death of his wife, Angela. She was coming back from visiting her sister in Galway when she had a head on collision with a truck. She was killed instantly yet the truck driver took two weeks to die. He had fallen asleep at the wheel and veered over to the other side of the road smashing into Angelas car. He was thirty three and had a wife and two young daughters, she was sixty four and had a husband and one son. Paddy couldn't express the pain he felt so he buried it inside himself, deep down, so he couldn't feel it, so he couldn't feel anything. This is what the doctors said brought on the disease, that his body just couldn't take the stress and over the last two years he had been slowly deteriorating.

It had started out with small things forgetting to meet friends and his own birthday but Stephens heart broke the day he knew he had lost his father. Stephen had gone round to the flat to pick his father up for mass. First he just knocked on the door but he got no answer, knowing his father had lost his hearing a bit he began banging on the door and shouting through the letterbox. There was still no answer even after ringing the house so he became worried and rang for an ambulance. Since he had forgotten his key he decided to waste no time and kick the door in and after five powerful blows the door was down and he was inside. With pictures in his mind of his father stretched out on the floor dying he rushed into each room yet as he entered the kitchen he stopped dead. Breathing heavily he tried to take it all in. The kitchen table had been overturned and behind it was his father half standing , half crouching. He was completely naked and in his hand he held a golf club with a white tea towel attached to the end of it. He was swaying it slowly from side to side, a terrified look in his childlike eyes. The ambulance arrived a few minutes later and took him to hospital. He was diagnosed with alzheimers then. In a breath Stephen had lost his mother yet his father was going to die of torture and he was going to be doing it to himself.

Paddy had just finished his sixth pint and the surroundings began to become familiar. He took a big slug out of his final pint and looked up to meet his sons eyes. “Stephen,” “yes da,” “don't let me have too many, your mother will be home early tomorrow and she ¢ ll give me a right ear bashin if I stink of gargle”. Stephen smiled “don't worry da, I ¢ ll watch ya”. The two men sitting at the end of the bar got off there seats and made for the door, there gaunt faces grimacing at the thought of the cold night air. As they passed Paddy turned around on his chair, “ ah Tommy how are ya?” Tommy stopped in his tracks “ eh good Paddy good, hows yourself?” were the only words he could get out. “ Ah I can ¢ t complain sure aren ¢ t we all just countin to infinity anyway”. Tommy laughed and turned for the door and the last words to be heard were “goodnite Stephen”. The pub was dead quiet now as Stephen had begun to close up for the night. Paddy sat glued to the stool staring into space and he remembered the boardwalk at Capecod and seeing so many people at once after spending so much time at sea. “They are like sheep,“ one of the lads had said as they unloaded the boat, but Paddy didn't see it, they weren't sheep they were like the sea, flowing in different directions, some parts deep and others shallow. After that he never felt lonely at sea again because as he lay in bed at night he felt the whole world rock him gently to sleep.

He jumped suddenly as a hand came down on his shoulder, “come on da, time for bed”. He grumbled twice as Stephen helped him to his feet and up the backstairs to the flat where the two lived. Paddys feet shifted awkwardly as his son manoeuvred him through the doorway and onto his bed. As he slumped onto the mattress the water wobbled then settled slowly as his body lay to rest. “ Like the ocean Stephen, like the ocean,” he slurred. “ Like the ocean,” Stephen replied as he turned off the light and closed the door and as the floor boards creaked as he made his way to his own room he laughed as he thought of his dad waking up in the morning with a hangover and not remembering even having a drink.

Love is the overriding theme of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The play may be a comedy yet the idea it supports is serious. In the play Lysander said “Ay me, for aught that I could ever read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth....” Lysander utters these words to Hermia when she feels burdened by the obstacles to their love particularly when her father, forbid them to marry.

Lysander assures Hermia that the course of true love has never been easy. There will always be insurmountable difficulties to impede it. Lysander cites differences in age as one (“misgrafted in respect of years”) and difficulties caused by friends or “war, death, or sickness,” which make love appears “swift as a shadow, short as any dream” (I.i.137, I.i.142-144). Hermia counters by remaining positive all throughout their travails and believing that the difficulties are merely the price lovers pay for romantic bliss. The exploration of love's difficulties is actually at the heart of the play. That, love's trail was never paved.

Love's difficulty is depicted in a number of instances in the play such as when Puck attempted to put love potion to Lysander and he ended up loving his fiancée Hermia's best friend Helena. Helena, on the other hand, is in love with Hermia's suitor Demetrius. But Demetrius loves Helena. The love triangle creates an imbalance with one Hermia having so many suitors while Helena has none.

All is well at the end, however, when Puck undoes his actions. Lysander loves Hermia again and Demetrius falls in love with Helena. A group wedding ensues.

Another theme of the play is fantasy or as the title suggests dreams. This dream or fantasy is represented by fairies in the forest and magic potions. The emphasis of this setting in the play prepares the readers' mind to the fact that something "magical" is about to occur. This, of course, lends some sort of credibility to the story.

The fantasy part of the play also symbolizes loss of identities of the characters. This is best exemplified by Oberon and Titania who quarrels because of Oberon's obsession to the Indian boy leaving Titania feeling unacknowledged.

It is this theme of lack of recognition of love that actually propels the story forward. This problem is not exclusive Oberon and Titania since other characters in the play undergo similar conflict. Demetrius ignores Helena's love and Hermia also refuses to acknowledge Demetrius' love for her.

That love causes loss of identity on the lovers is a certainty. Victor Kiernan, a Marxist scholar and historian said “It was the more extravagant cult of love that struck sensible people as irrational, and likely to have dubious effects on its acolytes”.

The loss of identities is a mere blurring of distinction in the desire to pursue practical ties between the characters in order to cope with the daunting world in the dark forest as exemplified in the brief and strange relationship between Titania and Bottom the Ass.

The counter culture influence on America is the idea that obtaining wealth, money, possessions, power, and love should be accomplished by any means necessary. This obsession leads to sadness, destruction, and in The Great Gatsby, even death. After the war, Gatsby wanted to get rich so he could eventually impress Daisy with his money. Since Gatsby was poor, he needed a way to get rich fast, eventually turning to illegal

ways of reaching his ultimate goal of Daisy. Even today, icons like Martha Stewart and caught stealing their way to the top, obtaining wealth and power however they can. The 1920's were the age of change, the age of reckless hedonism and moral bankruptcy, and Gatsby pursued his dreams by any means, even when it meant stealing money and stealing another mans wife. Fitzergerald himself had an agenda for why he bothered to write The Great Gatsby, as when Carroll claimed, “Fitzgerald set out to write a book that would make him rich enough to win Zelda (Carroll 1).” In the end, for Gatsby, he was killed by his own greed for Daisy, and his dream turned into a nightmare, screeching to an abrupt halt.

Along with the obsession of obtaining wealth and power, another great change in culture affected the means by which Americans would obtain their wealth and power. This change was in morality. Gone are the days in which everyone followed strict laws and went to church everyday in fear of being labeled a pagan. Gone are the days of a set moral code of conduct, were God was put in front on ones own desires. Gone are the days of the true American Dream, the Dream that inspired the pilgrims and colonists to pursue happiness, freedom, and God. As said by Hitchens, “No other culture is so addicted to this narcissistic impression of itself as having any innocence to lose in the first place (Hitchens 80).” What was before fueled by the intention of leading the rest of the world by being an example, the American Dream evolved into the pursuit of ones own goals of happiness, fueled only by ones own desires, however malicious they may be. The American Dream transformed into a beast of corrupt and evil intentions.

When all of these events on how the American dream switched from good intentions to bad intentions take place in the 1920's there is America's battle worn society to worry about. What was at first a land of prosperity and happiness now resembles a wasteland, a valley of ashes watched over by a God who no longer cares for its people. In The Great Gatsby, the eyes of Dr. Eckelburg represent Gods gaze over the wastelands of America, saying that, “His eyes dimmed a little by many paintless days under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground (Fitzgerald 28).” Fitzgerald believes that with no morality, the American Dream is dead. This assumption that God no longer cares about society must also mean that society no longer cares for God, and morality. The results of the 1920's clearly showed that America was headed down the wrong lane of destiny. Now it is too late, as the culture of the past is now integrated in our culture today. The only step that can be taken now is to learn from the past mistakes and look towards to future.

As time goes on, the American Dream is corrupted by society's unwillingness to live by the rules of moral conduct, causing worldly pleasures and wealth to replace the original goal of happiness. America has come a long way since the 1920's, and there are still many decisions to be made concerning what direction America will take next. The mistake that Gatsby made was that he thought he could obtain Daisy by any means necessary, when in reality, Gatsby had “Committed himself to the following of a grail (Fitzgerald 156).” Gatsby made the mistake of justifying the ends with means. People thought that the American Dream could be reached by justifying the means, when in reality, the means was the American Dream.

This card Joe had found wasn't sure to keep it or not. Eventually, he decided to keep the card instead of returning it to his neighbors or selling it because he new that his mom and him were getting in trouble with money. After looking at the perfectly conditioned 1 million dollar baseball card in his bed, he soon discovered he could do something nobody else in the world can accomplish!

This item gave Joe the ability to travel back in time with the baseball card he found and certain other old cards! Joe traveled back in time to the 1909 World Series in Detroit with the card he had found in the attic and finds himself in a Hotel room with the baseball player on the card across the room. With this player knowing him, Joe has gotten the chance to bat in the World Series losing by one run. This is where it all starts.

The book Honus & Me is an excellent book for anyone who enjoys baseball. Also, if you like the autobiographies by Matt Christopher, this is a perfect series for you.

Old Major wanted the best for the animals. You could say that they fulfilled his dream because the animals ultimately got their freedom from man. He wanted them to not touch money, which they fulfilled using the broker. The commandments that were changed worked for all the animals, so any animal could drink alcohol without excess or sleep in beds without sheets. They all did their fair share of work, whether physical labor or mental.

At first glance these arguments appear convincing. Old Major wanted freedom from man, and thats what the animals finally got. Upon closer examination though, the animals changed the commandments which introduced conflicts with Old Major's dream. When the cows were milked, the animals asked what the animals were going to do with the milk. The pigs told them to forget about the milk and then they used it only for themselves. Ideally, the pigs should have distributed the milk equally to all the animals based on the commandment, “All animals are created equal.” This was the first action that the pigs did to treat themselves better than all the other animals.

The pigs changed other commandments to suite them better to. For example, the pigs changed the commandments so the animals could sleep in beds without sheets and that the animals could drink alcohol in excess. You might argue that all the animals could use those same rules, but those rules were not originally in Old Major's dream. Another deed the pigs and dogs committed was to kill other animals which was against one of the commandments. Even if the animals that were killed had been helping Snowball to do his dirty work, they still shouldn't have been killed according to the commandments.

The arguments of Snowball and Napoleon led the animals astray, eventually far enough to cause Snowball to be exiled and other animals to be killed. Napoleon drove Snowball out because he was the only animal that tried to stop him from taking over Animal Farm. Another fact is that Old Major did not want the animals to have any relationships with humans, but Napoleon sold the wood to a nearby farmer. He also got a broker to link him up to the outside world to sell eggs, and wood, and to buy a generator for the windmill. This might not have been direct trade, except they still interacted with the humans. Partying with the humans was also against Old Major's dream which the pigs did towards the end of the book.

To conclude, the animals did not follow through on Old Major's dream. Old Major did not want the animals to adopt to the human ways in any way; the animals broke Old Major's rules; the arguments led the animals astray; and the animals developed relations with the humans. Although Old Major's initial dream was that the animals break away from human-kind's rule, ultimately the humans were replaced by something far worse, the tyrannical rule of the pigs.