Humor in A Midsummer Night's Dream

Humor in A Midsummer Night's Dream

Shakespeare uses many ways to portray humor and make his plays a success

because of it. He created a careful mix of love with humor to create a success

called "A Midsummer Night's Dream." The focus of this paper is to describe how

Shakespeare uses humor in his play.

One way that Shakespeare uses humor in this play is by using plain humor that

need not be interpreted in any way. He did this by creating the artisans. The

artisans, obviously are not intelligent at all, but try to be. They mess up

grammar, spelling, and everything that the author of "Pyramus and Thisby" had

wanted for his play. For instance, when Bottom says "Thisbe, the flowers of

odious savors sweet,"82 he was supposted to say ‘odors' instead of ‘odious' in

the sentence. Odors means "fragrant smells," while odious means "repulsive." A

simple mistake by someone that is low in the society, but totally changes the

meaning of the sentence. This humor is obvious to everybody watching that

Bottom had made a mistake. This type of humor, while obvious, sometimes doesn't

portray the meaning correctly. Inferred humor is sometimes more suited for this.

Shakespeare used something like inferred humor to get across some other

meanings that added to the play. One good example is the character of Puck.

Puck is a hyperactive child that gets into a lot of mischief. His attitude

toward his tasks is sort of a light and airy one. He does not take life

seriously, he only does what is fun. This type of character is totally

different than everyone else in the play; they are in a serious tone, while Puck

is just dancing around pulling pranks on everyone. One good example of a prank

that Puck created was putting an Ass' head on Bottom. It was unnecessary, just

fun. What made him funny was these sort of pranks, and the contrast of his

attitude toward the other ones in the story. For example, Lysander is bound up

in love for Hermia and Helena, depending on what part of the play. He is very

serious and sad because Hermia is being forced to marry Demetrius. Sort of

equivalent to a tragedy. Puck is just creating mischief and having fun.

Another way that Shakespeare uses humor is that he uses examples that would

never happen in real life. For example, after Lysander and Demetrius had been

led around the king's oak for a long time, they fell down and went to sleep.

This contains no logic whatsoever, because they are trying to kill each other,