Comedy in Midsummer Night’s Dream Shakespeare displays wordplay regularly throughout Midsummer Night’s Dream. Wordplay is the witty usage of words and banter such as puns, irony, and oxymorons (Belknap, 2017). William Shakespeare uses wordplay to lighten up the scene and establish comedy. It helps tell a story by entertaining, amusing and providing satire. He even uses comedy in times of tragedy to not only lighten up the mood but also create tension between the characters, making it more meaningful than before. During scene two of act one, Bottom is speaking to Quince about how he wants to play multiple parts in their play. Flute does not want to play a woman so Bottom interrupts suggesting that he performs Thisbe as well. Bottom cuts off
Did you know that another name for Puck ( Oberon's right-hand man) was Robin Good-fellow but to some of the meaner fairies. He was known as a Hobgoblin because of his bizarre figure. Puck the mischievous, quick-witted fairy that makes many of the play’s events relevant to the modern world. Such as, the uncanny ability to cause mischief and mayhem with the common folk of Athens and especially the main characters of the story. However, there is also many issues and problems with the characters in Midsummer Night's Dream. For example, Puck arguably the most important character in Midsummer Night's Dream, has little character development and there is no true protagonist. Even though many people thought that Puck should be one of the main protagonists of this story.
In his comedic play, A Midsummers Night Dream (1595), William Shakespeare utilizes the enchanting adventures of young Athenian lovers and a group of low-class rudimentary actors and their shared experiences with supernatural creatures to portray the opportunity of being in command of their destiny. By presenting conflicts to these three diverse realms, Shakespeare allows these characters to connect despite their hierarchical distinctions to reveal their determination to conquer their adversity. He uses dramatic irony, metaphor, and symbolism to heighten the audience's awareness of their self-determination and their firm control on their future. Shakespeare inspires the public by instilling in them that despite their challenging circumstances, they can still be masters of their own fate, bestowing a feeling of newfound hope and freewill.
William Shakespeare wrote the play A Midsummer's Night’s Dream over four hundred years ago. There are three types of irony, dramatic irony, verbal irony, and situational irony. Verbal irony is is when the speaker says the opposite of what they mean. Dramatic irony is when the audience knows more than the character. And situational irony is the opposite of what you think is going to happen happens.
One of William Shakespeare’s best remembered plays for its comical and ironic tone is A Midnight’s Summer Dream. There were characters designed to be humorous and that alone. Puck and Bottom behave very much alike, and have similar roles for different people. Both Puck and Bottom are comic relief characters in one way or the other. Both of them are needed for the play, because Puck’s spirits controls the whole story, which sets the tone for it, and Bottoms comic relief for the audience and play.
“And though she be but little, she is fierce!” (Shakespeare 3.2.335). This is a famous quote from A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare. This quote is still heard today and is an example of situational irony. Situational irony is when what happens is the exact opposite of what is expected to happen. There are two other types of irony, verbal and dramatic. Dramatic irony is when the audience knows more than a character in a book or movie. When the speaker says the opposite of what he means is verbal irony. All three of these types of irony are used in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. These examples help to build tension or create humor for the audience.
Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet humor Shakespeare uses humor differently in Macbeth, than in Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet in 1597, which is way before Shakespeare wrote Macbeth, which was in 1606. Macbeth was a tragedy, while Romeo and Juliet was tragedy and romance. It does not seem like Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth because the two stories were completely opposite.
Shakespeare’s usage of metaphor and simile in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is best understood as an attempt to provide some useful context for relationships and emotions, most often love and friendship, or the lack thereof. One example of such a usage is in Act 3, Scene 2 of the play. Here, the two Athenian couples wake up in the forest and fall under the effects of the flower, thus confusing the romantic relationships between them. Hermia comes to find her Lysander has fallen for Helena. Hermia suspects that the two have both conspired against her in some cruel joke, and begins lashing out against Helena. She says “We, Hermia, like two artificial gods, / Have with our needles created both one flower, / Both one sampler sitting on one cushion, / Both warbling of one song, both in one key; / As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds, / Had been incorporate. So we grew together, / Like a double cherry, seeming parted; / But yet a union in partition / Two lovely berries moulded on one stem: / So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart; / Two of the first, like coats in heraldry, / Due but to one, and crowned with one crest.” (Shakespeare 2.3.206-13). Shakespeare writes this list of vibrant metaphors to establish the prior relationship between these two characters and to make it evident how affected Helena is by this unexpected turn of events, as well as to add a greater range of emotion to the comedy, thereby lending it more literary and popular appeal.
What is a comedy? According to a famous filmmaker, Woody Allen, thinks “Comedy is rather like a dessert, a bit like meringue.” A Midsummer Night’s Dream - a play written by William Shakespeare, is a comedy which talks about a love story between four lovers that live in Athens. Demetrius, Lysander, Hermia and Helena are all fighting for each other. The play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” written by Shakespeare, consisted of a lot of humorous situations, for example: When Titania fell in love with Bottom who had an ass; when Lysander suddenly fell in love with Helena, when Demetrius suddenly fell in love with Hermia. This essay is considered as a comedy, as it consists of exaggeration, irony, funny characters,
In the comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the plethora of comedic styles used by Shakespeare illustrate his intention to poke fun at love throughout the play. The play is notorious for its intricate and irrational plotline, mainly due to the constantly shifting love triangles. Once the powerful fairies become involved with the fate of the naive lovers – Demetrius, Helena, Lysander and Hermia – matters are further complicated. The complication inflicted by the fairies is credited to the powerful love potion that Oberon, King of the Fairies, hands over to Puck, a mischievous fairy, to use on his wife Titania, with intentions to embarrass and distract her. This spiteful attitude is due to Oberon and Titania’s argument over the custody of an
The rise of tension between characters is another characteristic of comedic plays. After Oberon sees the way that Helena has been treated by Demetrius, he orders Puck to apply the juice to the eyes of Demetrius. Puck accidentally applies the juice to Lysander’s eye, which causes him to fall in love with Helena. After the mistake had been caught, Oberon sends Puck to watch Helena and Oberon applies the juice to Demetrius’ eyes. This causes both men to fall for Helena and now the battle is for Helena and not Hermia. Helena is convinced that this is a joke or prank because neither of the two men loved her before. Now because of Puck’s mistakes the four decide to find a
"Bottom, you've been transformed," (Shakespeare 38). During this part of the scene, Nick Bottom's head was turned into that of a donkey. It was an example of irony. Irony is when the exact opposite of what you expect to happen actually occurs. There are three different types of irony: situational, verbal, and dramatic. In the play, A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare, there are many instances of irony.
In many of Shakespeare’s literary works one can find multiple themes that reflect or question our reality. He accomplishes this by using figurative language such as metaphors and similes. Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream encompasses many themes and apply them to certain characters or through communication between multiple characters. Helena portrays themes of love, betrayal, jealousy, and gender norms in Midsummer Night’s Dream presenting them through her speech and behavior. She depicts the challenges of a woman and also the flaws of human nature. In Act 2 scene 1 and Act 3 scene 2 Helena uses a metaphor twice which emulates these themes presenting us a broader understanding of her representation within the play and the play as a whole. Following are lines from Helena.
Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a play that utilises comedy to convey complex ideas that are seen throughout the play, concepts like the jealousy Helena has towards Hermia, Egeus’s strong hostility towards Hermia and Lysander’s relationship and unrequited love. He uses comical tools like unconscious irony and hyperbole to turn rather difficult topics into humorous representations of them. Events like how Puck thinks Titania had fallen in love with him, not knowing he was bearing the head of an ass, are portrayed in a humorous way so the viewer understands the meaning, but sees it as a light- hearted narrative. Shakespeare carefully uses comedy that does not overpower the meaning of the play, but puts a completely different perspective on some of the themes.
Humour is a literary tool used for the entertainment of audiences and amusement. Shakespeare’s, A Midsummer Night’s Dream utilises a multi formed humour to show many aspects such as the foolishness of the mechanicals, the clash of the fairy realm vs. human world and the romance of the lovers. Through an array of dramatic and literary techniques, Shakespeare creates a play with elaborate humour that is still understood by audiences of today. The Idiocy of the Mechanicals is used to create humour in Midsummer through literary and dramatic techniques.
The story of A Midsummer Night's Dream was mainly about love and its abnormal dealings. In the play, Shakespeare tried to show that love is unpredictable, unreasonable, and at times is blind. The theme of love was constantly used during the play and basically everything that was said and done was related to the concept of love and its unpredictable ness. Shakespeare made all of the characters interact their lives to be based on each other’s. At first, everything was very confusing, and the characters were faced with many different problems. In the end, however, they were still able to persevere and win their true love, the love they were searching for in the first place.