Walking the Wall

There is a new series on NBC this season called Medium, its based (loosely or otherwise) on the real life of a woman named Allison Dubois
who is a medium who has worked with the police on cases as well as been
involved with studies involving her paranormal skills.  Now, I’m
not going to go into the validity of her abilities or in the state of
realism of the show as I don’t know her nor have I read the book the
series is based on. I did find tonight’s show (or rather, Jan 24th’s
show) to be very poignant and to fit into, perhaps surprisingly, some
things about Shakespeare I had been mulling over. Along with the normal
“find the bad guy” plot of the episode, there was also a sub plot where
Allison’s daughter Brigette, has a 5 or 6 year old friend who ends up
being a little boy who is dead. There is a beautiful scene where
Allison talks to Bobby and asks him, “Aren’t you tired?” and takes both
him and her daughter to a patch of grass under a tree. Both children,
the living and the dead, lay their head in her lap as she had told
Bobby it was time for him to let go, relax, and move on. Later the show
ends with Brigette playing alone in the sandbox at school, Bobby had
been her only friend as the other kids seemed to have sensed she was
different and had no friends. A little girl asked her where her friend
was and Brigette explained he had needed to go, the little girl
consults the air (seemingly) and announces that Brigette can play with
her and her friend. Brigette looks skeptical, announcing, There is no
one there, but the little girl just smiles, this is her imaginary
friend, she says, he’s a giraffe. From Africa? Brigette questions. Of
course, the little girl responds, where else?! Indeed, where else! And
off they run to play on the swings.

How does this fit into Shakespeare, you might be thinking, and rightly
so. I have just finished reading and discussing Midsummer Night’s Dream
in a Shakespeare class tonight, and while this is not my favorite of
his plays, this is certainly one that I have read a good number of
times and greatly enjoy reading. Shakespeare has an interesting way of
slipping in the fantastical, the magical, just out of the blue and with
a blink of an eye and very little disruption, the audience says,
“Oh…okay…there are fairies in this wood…I can accept that…” and
disbelief is suspended and it just…works. There is a section in
Midsummer about imagination; Theseus, the Duke of Athens is speaking to
his soon to be wife after having heard the story of the four young
lovers “dream”:

More strange than true. I never may believe
These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover and the poet
Are of imagination all compact.
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt.
The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That, if it would be apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!
5.1.4-22

Such is the power of lunatics, lovers, poets–and children. Here’s my friend, he’s a giraffe…From Africa? But of course!