Fools In A Midsummer Night's Dream

When most people think of a fool, they recall a video that they watched of people building a ramp out of a piece of plywood and then attempt to use it. Others, however, may think back to when they were in history class and there was a student that sat in the back of the class and did things to irritate the professor. Regardless of what comes to mind, there always seems to be a common theme when describing a fool. It’s a person that is silly or is doing something idiotic. However, there are many more examples of a fool, especially in literature. William Shakespeare commonly has a foolish character in his plays. In his plays, the fool is usually a witty commoner that outsmarts the people of a higher social class. However, he does also enjoy to

One fool is Puck, the servant of the king of the fairies, and the other fool is Bottom, one of the actors hired to perform for the duke and his bride. Puck becomes one of the important roles within the play. He causes conflict by playing pranks on the other characters. Puck plays two major pranks within the play. He and Oberon decide that they want to use a love potion on Titania, the queen of the fairies. He decides to make her fall in love with a “monster” by changing Bottom’s head into the head of an ass. He does this just for his own enjoyment. The other prank he plays is at the end when he is asking the crowd for forgiveness for what he’s done. When doing this, he ends by telling the audience that everything that was just witnessed was just a

Another fool in Shakespeare’s literature is Autolycus from The Winter’s Tale. He is a pickpocket and a con man, both of which he is great at. Most of the time, Autolycus is portrayed as rhyming or singing. He is very outgoing and is also quite clever. Most of his lies are weaved in songs or dances, making him a likeable character. He also uses outfit changes to portray himself as different people in order to make his schemes more successful. With this in mind, the character can be associated with an actor, which could be comedic or foolish. Autolycus becomes an all-knowing character by the end of the play. He learns the entire story of Perdita and her past from each different perspective. Regardless of him not being a major role in this play, he does bring a comedic aspect to the play and helps the audience put the different storylines of the play