A Midsummer Night's Dream Research Paper

Marissa Coe
EN 360 Shakespeare I
Major Paper 1
03/25/14

In one of Shakespeare’s famous plays, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the mischievous fairy Puck plays a role like no other. Although he has minor parts in this playwright, his personality and foolish traits make him admirable to readers. A perfect actor to cast the role of Puck I believe would be Joe Pesci, an American actor and comedian of the 20th century. Pesci shares his foolish and witless personality with the character of Puck and fits his role in many ways. The casting of Joe Pesci as Puck can be justified by their unique similarities. In a Midsummer Night’s Dream, Puck is the fairy that plays all tricks on the humans. For instance, he transforms Bottom’s, the comical fool in the play, head into a donkey (“ass”) and pours the love potion into the
wrong lover’s eyes. After he turns Bottom’s head into an “ass” he states,
“I’ll follow you. I’ll lead you about a round
Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier.
Sometime a horse I’ll be, sometime a hound,
A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire. And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn, Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn” (3.1.87-92).
Here Puck is teasing Bottom and poking fun at his appearance. These instances depict Puck’s mischievous traits where he reveals his foolish personality within in the story. These personality traits are comparable to Joe Pesci characteristics in his acting career. Pesci plays the role of a jokester in a variety of his movies. He is always pulling peoples legs and making his audience laugh. A major similarity between both Puck and Pesci is that although they may come off as evil they’re both naturally harmless and as characters, they play jokes on people out of pure enjoyment rather than out of spite. Pesci stars in the famous movie, The Goodfellas, where in a memorable scene he portrays himself as a “wise guy” and convinces one of his co-workers that he is going to fight him and literally scares him half to death but is kidding around with him the entire time. Pesci ends their argument by stating, “I almost had you bud! I crack myself up” (The Goodfellas). Both Puck and Pesci’s wittiness make them a perfect match and would allow Pesci to play Puck’s character perfectly. Along with Pesci’s ability to play pranks, he also portrays similar qualities to the character of Puck in the way that he has a hard time admitting to his own brain-less mistakes. In the scene in a Midsummer Night’s Dream where Puck smears the love potion on the Athenian lover, Lysander’s eyelids instead of Demetrius’, Puck refuses to take responsibility for his wrongdoing and blames it on the lovers. Puck states to Oberon, “Captain of our fairy band,
Helena is here at hand;
And the youth, mistook by me,
Pleading for a lover 's fee.
Shall we their fond pageant see?
Lord, what fools these mortals be!” (3.2.110-15)
Here Puck is calling the lovers fools and putting them at fault which ironically reflects on his own character who is the actual fool of the story. He mixes up the love potion so he could sit back and enjoy watching the lovers act like fools trying to figure out what happened to them. Like Puck, Joe Pesci acts with a stubborn attitude about his foolish mistakes. They both enjoy fooling around but when they take it too far, their persistent personalities allow them to believe it wasn’t their fault. In the movie The Goodfellas once again Pesci’s personality comes to life when he is talking to his group of friends at the bar and is playing jokes on the waiter and his friends laughing say, “You really are a funny guy! I could laugh at you all day” (“The Goodfellas”). Joe Pesci’s headstrong and humorous personality is another vital reason that he fits the part of Puck. In a Midsummer Night’s Dream, the character Puck represents the lawless quality of the pastoral world, he does what he wants depending on how you treat him. He doesn’t respect the laws and his careless attitude is a major part of his character. In the scene where he is pretending to be Lysander and provokes Demetrius that he wants to battle with him he says in Lysander’s voice,
“Thou coward, art thou bragging to the stars,
Telling the bushes that thou look’st for wars,
And wilt not come? Come, recreant. Come, thou child!
I’ll whip thee with a rod. He is defiled
That draws a sword on thee” (3.2.407-11).
Here Puck is mischievously impersonating Lysander to irritate the Athenian lover, we can see him doing whatever he pleases and not worrying about the consequences of the law or respecting other people.
In comparison to Joe Pesci, they both share the quality of getting enjoyment from messing with other people and not respecting the moral society. In one of his more popular movies, My Cousin Vinny, a 1992 comedy film, he plays the comical lawyer, Vinny who defends his cousins in a murder case. Vinny manages to fool the trial judge about being experienced enough to take the case in a game of cat-and-mouse that progresses throughout the film. His ignorance of basic court procedures and dress code as well as his sarcastic and disrespectful attitude causes the judge to put him in contempt. When the judge asks him why he didn’t dress appropriately for court, Pesci responds, “You were serious about that, I’m going to wear whatever the hell I want HA! HA!” (“My Cousin Vinny”). Pesci’s attitude in this movie and many of his others correlates with the personality of Puck in Shakespeare’s play, which also supports the decision of having Pesci cast as his
character. The character of Puck holds the responsibility of being witty, mischievous, good-hearted but capable of tricks and also requires ability to be rebellious against the law. Along with his foolish and witless personality, Joe Pesci fits the part of Puck through his ability to play pranks on the people around him and his comical and stubborn attitude. All in all both Pesci and Puck share numerous similar qualities and mirror one another’s character, justifying Pesci as a top candidate to play the role of Puck in a Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Works Cited
Shakespeare,William, Gail Kern Paster, and Skiles Howard. A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Texts and Contexts). The Beford Shakespeare Series. Boston. Bedford/St. Martin’s,1999. Print.

The Goodfellas. Dir. Martin Scorsese. Perf. Joe Pesci, Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Loriaine Bracco and Paul Sirvino. Warner Bros,1990. Film.

My Cousin Vinny. Dir. Jonathan Lynn. Perf. Joe Pesci, Ralph Macchio, Marisa Tomei and Fred Gwynne. 20th Century Fox, 1992. Film.