Scene Analysis in "A Midsummer Nights Dream"

‘Midsummer Nights Dream’ is one of Shakespeare’s most famous and successful plays. The play was part of Shakespeare’s early work. It was written and performed around 1595. ‘A Midsummer Nights Dream’ is a romantic comedy play; and that’s what I will be focusing on how Shakespeare creates humour in act 5 scene 1. So how does he create humour?

There are many ways as to how Shakespeare creates humour; one of the main reasons is through the characters. There are there sets of characters the fairies, court and the mechanicals in this case it’s the mechanicals. The mechanicals are normal workers that want to become actors. They are uneducated, you can tell this because Bottom (mechanical) says in act 4 scene 2 line 20 “Where are these lads?” This shows that they are uneducated because you notice straight away that he is speaking in prose. We can tell this by comparing “Where are these lads?” to “Say, what abridgement have you for this evening” (line 39 Act 5 scene1). You can differentiate from who is educated and who is not by the choice of languages Shakespeare has given these characters (Prose and verse). The way this creates humour is quite obvious, if you kept in mind that the mechanicals want to be actors, imagine how difficult

It would be for them to speak in verse when acting. How humorous would it be?

Act 5 scene 1 is the most comical scene out of the whole play. The reason as to why it’s so funny is because in this scene the mechanicals perform there ridiculously humorous play. Shakespeare’s remarkably clever staging creates the hilarious atmosphere. The layout of the stage is quite unusual. You have a stage where the courts sit; on the stage you have the original stage (stage on stage) where the mechanicals perform ther...

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...nsulting comments and angrily said All I have to tell you is that the lantern is the moon this thorn bush is my the thorn bush and this dog is my dog.

When Bottom enters the stage as Pyramus Shakespeare develops the humour created. Bottom over reacts the dramatic love scene by putting on an over the top tone of voice and his repetitive incorrect use of language. This shows the audience how poor his acting skills are which makes it hilarious. An example of his clumsy and unrehearsed acting could be when he stabbed himself. He was supposed to die in line 285 but he chose to carry on until line 290. Soon after he woke up and asked the duke whether he wanted an epilogue or a dance. This shows how that he wants to demonstrate how

confident his acting skills were. Rather than blowing our expectations, it becomes funny because we see how ridiculous his character is.