This diagram displays which characters speak to each other in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Several interesting patterns emerge: - The characters group cleanly into the mechanicals, the fairies and the court.
- The three groups have little direct contact:
- Bottom is the only character who talks with people in each group.
- The mechanicals (other than Bottom) never encounter the fairies.
- The court people don't encounter the mechanicals in the woods.
- The court people generally don't even know the fairies exist.
- The three groups have different conversations patterns:
- The mechanicals rarely talk directly to each other individually; they
- talk to Bottom,
- talk to Quince,
- talk to the whole group as a whole, or
- speak their lines in the play.
- The fairies favor linear connections:
- Titania speaks with Oberon
- who speaks with Puck;
- who speaks with a Fairy in Act 2.
- Even when Titania and Bottom's talk to the little fairies, the little fairies never speak to each other.
- Due to this linear structure,
- Oberon is the only main character who speaks to Puck;
- Puck and Titania never speak to each other.
- The court contains two conversation subgroups: younger and older.
- The younger subgroup (Hermia, Lysander, Demetrius, Helena) talk directly at each other, but rarely address themselves as a group.
- The older subgroup funnels its conversations through Theseus:
- Egeus, Hippolyta and Philostrate speak only to Theseus, never to each other.
- In fact, Hippolyta only ever speaks to Theseus!
- Conversations between the older and younger subgroups are limited:
- Theseus speaks to Hermia and Demetrius;
- Egeus speaks to Demetrius and Lysander;
- Notably missing links in the court conversations:
- Egeus never speaks to Hermia;
- Theseus never speaks to Lysander;
- No one from the older court speaks to Helena!
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 Updating... Harry Robinson, Jul 26, 2016, 7:56 AM
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