Examples Of Comedy In A Midsummer Night's Dream

William Shakespeare wrote a total of 37 plays, one of which was A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Unlike some of his other plays, such as Romeo & Juliet and Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is comedic and has a happy ending. Alas, Shakespeare can only be so nice. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is full of many burns and insults from one character to another. Shakespeare shows many examples of comedy, but a big one is insult comedy, of which he shows many examples of within the script. Insult comedy is a form of comedy in which one person taunts or teases another person for comedic effect. An insult is usually something bad used to make another person’s self esteem drop. Shakespeare, however, brings comedic relief to a once horrid action. In his play,
Egeus angrily storms in to confront Theseus about his daughter, telling him that he wants Hermia to marry Demetrius, but she is in love with Lysander and refuses to. In the midst of this commotion, Lysander and Demetrius begin to argue over who is the better choice. During this exchange Lysander states, “You have her father’s love, Demetrius; Let me have Hermia’s: do you marry him” (1.1. 95-96). Lysander is telling Demetrius that because Egeus loves him and Hermia does not, he should just marry Egeus instead. This is comedic because he is saying that because they love each other so much, they should just marry each other and leave Hermia to him, since Hermia loves Lysander. Lysander’s love for Hermia is what leads him to fight against Egeus and Demetrius. This shows that when he cares strongly about someone he will defend them. The reader can see that when faced with conflict, Lysander reacts rudely and
Peter’s voice is rather coarse and he chokes a lot, earning a few snide comments from Theseus and Hippolyta. Hippolyta said that Quince, “...played his prologue like a child on a recorder, a sound, but not in government” (5.1.128-129). Hippolyta is saying that while Quince’s voice has the potential to be good, much like a recorder, he does not have control or harmony in his voice: it is just a bunch of jumbled sound. When saying this, Hippolyta is insulting Quince’s ability in speaking. After Hippolyta said that, Theseus then adds, “His speech, was like a tangled chain: nothing impaired, but all disordered” (5.1.130-131). In this, Theseus is stating that while there may not be anything mentally or physically wrong with Quince, he was very all over the place and his presentation was atrocious. The exchange between the two is comedic because Quince is being compared to average things malfunctioning, much like him and his inability to perform well. This shows that even when not faced with conflict, Theseus and Hippolyta are often judgemental and rude of those under them on the social