READING FOR WEEK 7&8

Comedy in A Midsummer Night's Dream

"Why do they run away? This is a knavery of them to make me afeard."(3.1.99)

In this quote, the speaker, Bottom, is wondering why everyone is afraid of him. He doesn't realize that as a practical joke, the trickster sprite Puck, has put an ass head on his shoulders. This makes all of his companions afraid of him so that they run away. This is an example of the element of comedy involved in the play.

The funniest part of this play seems to be when Puck, the trickster, mixes up the people who he is assigned to put the love juice on. The first example of this mistake of Puck's is where he puts the love juice in Lysander's eyes, mistaking him for Demetrius. Oberon tells Puck to put the love juice in the eyes of an Athenian man, Demetrius, and to make sure that the first thing he sees after this is the woman whom he hates, but who loves him so much, Helena. Puck ends up finding Lysander and Hermia, lovers, sleeping on the forest floor. He asummes that they are the Athenian maid and man that Oberon referred to and so puts the love juice in Lysander's eyes and leaves. In a bizzare twist, along come Helena and Demetrius to the very spot where Lysander and Hermia lie. Demetrius and Helena are still arguing and Demetrius leaves her with the sleeping Lysander and Hermia. Helena only notices Lysander there and tries to wake him up, concerned that he has been hurt or is dead. Lysander wakes and the first thing he sees is Helena. Lysander says to Helena when he sees her that he will "...run through fire for thy sweat sake. Transparent Helena! Nature shows art, That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart."(2.2.103). Lysander has now fallen in love with Helena, a person he has always viewed and trusted as a friend. This is where the comedy of this love mix up begins. Now Helena is confused and thinks that Lysander is playing a trick on her and mocking her for her inability to make Demetrius fall in love with and so she runs away. This is a particularly funny part of the play, especially when viewed and these mix ups between the lovers seem to make up some of the funniest portions of the play.


Clip 1: Hermia & Lysander elope- in the Athenian forest



Clip 2: The four lovers during the tangled confusion in the forest



Another funny section in this play is where Puck puts an ass head on the shoulders of Bottom. This happens when Bottom is gathered with the other craftsmen to rehearse a play for the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta. Bottom comes across as bossy and offers some ideas of how to improve the play while resolving the perceived problems in the scene where the lion appears on stage. Puck who chances upon the gathering notices Bottom. He decides to pull a little prank on them all so he puts an ass head on Bottom's shoulders. When the others see him, they are frightened of him and are flee to escape the monstrosity that Bottom now was.

"O monstrous! O strange! We are haunted. Pray, masters! Fly, masters! Help!."(3.1.91) Quince yells this out when he notices the head on Bottom. Obviously he is frightened by what he sees. Bear in mind that Elizabethan audiences lived in a time when superstition was rife and it is entirely possible that the audiences might have shared in Quince's horror at the transformation of Bottom.

"O Bottom, thou art changed! What so I see on thee?"(3.1.101) Snout shouts this out at Bottom when he sees him with the head that Puck has given him. Everyone is afraid of him because they perceive him as having been tampered with and 'possessed' by spirits. This is quite a humorous section in the play. Puck's action of transforming Bottom's head into that of an ass allows for much humor in terms of reactions by the craftsmen but also the language that Bottom uses as he wonders why they have left him alone. His reactions after the other craftsmen have left are also equally humourous; he sings loudly and in the process awakens the immediately smittened Titania which brings the humor within the play into yet another level.

Humor and comedy are rife when Titania falls in love with Bottom despite his monstrous appearance and ass' head. She sees him immediately upon being awakened by his singing and says, "I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again: Mine ear is much enamour'd of thy note; So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape; And thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me. On the first view to say, to swear, I love thee."(3.1.123) Titania has fallen in love with an ass and treats him as her lover, getting her delicate ethereal fairy attendants to attend attentively to Bottom's every whim. Visually, the sight of delicate creatures fawning over a monster in the shape of Bottom is sure to bring a smile to one's lips. The incongruity of the situation adds yet another element of humor and comedy to the play.