Gaslighting the Gallery: Sexual Violence in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Over the last decade, individuals who have been sexually harassed, assaulted, and violated have found the courage, the community, and the cause to vocalize their experiences, identify their attackers, and demand justice, engendering what is now known as the #metoo movement. With the help of social media, the movement has “provided [women with]…the safety that comes from solidarity” (Borge). This trend has spurred a need to examine the origin of sexual abuse and harassment and to question why, only recently—sometimes decades after violations—the truth is uncovered. Due to a deeply entrenched patriarchal hegemony that perpetuates fear, insecurity, and slut-shaming, reticence and obedience have often been a victim’s only socially appropriate responses. William Shakespeare’s play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, exposes the cultural logic through which powerful men abuse women and convince them to stay silent, or even pretend to enjoy the abuse. Specifically, the characters of Puck and Oberon rely on a misogynistic, patriarchal social force to establish a culture of silence, submission, and public amenability. It is not uncommon for men to dismiss their reprehensible actions as trivial and to further attempt to construct the abuse as an illusion. After Morgan Freeman was accused of assaulting women, in classic Goodfellow form, he, too, claimed that his behavior was merely “light-hearted and humorous” meant to merely “compliment” the victims, and he repeatedly claimed that he “did not assault women” (Ventura, Charles, McDermott). Masculine figures like Puck and Freeman share a devious method; they hijack their victims’ abuse narrative and reconfigure it…