In his play, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare creates humor through three diverse devices: oxymoron's, malapropisms and mistaken identities. All result in a farcical mix of comic situations. Wordplay, such as the use of oxymorons, is an abundant source of humor in Shakespeare. The word oxymoron comes from the Greek meaning "pointedly foolish." Pointedly foolish certainly applies to the mechanicals, whose ignorance provides the root of all their comedy in the play.…
In 'The Cyclops', the Euripides parody of an episode in 'The odyssey', humour is introduced thorugh the use of topsyturvydum, inequality and the outright rejection of what the audience perceives to be acceptable and expected by social context.…
In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare is telling the readers that, love needs no reason to exist; it defies logic and ignores all circumstances. This compelling message is very thoroughly communicated with the connection of the fantasy world and reality. The connection occurs in a forest, where each character of significance is, at one point, present. Here, the characters experience unforeseen events, as a result of the debatable use of magic, from those in power. However, despite the extreme unusualness and complications, the characters challenge the circumstances, and persist in loving the one they feel closest to. In this play, this situation is best represented by three significant relationships. The first exists between a lover and her hater, the next involves a young and rebellious couple, and the last concerns an ill-fated mechanical and the queen of the fairies.…
Puck laughs at the lovers: "Lord, what fools these mortals be!" (3.2.115). He enjoys watching Lysander chase Helena, calling it a "fond pageant" (3.2.114). He doesn 't feel sorry for the young lovers as Oberon does. Puck enjoys teasing them: "Cupid is a knavish lad, / Thus to make poor females mad" (3.3.28-29). Likewise, Shakespeare doesn 't seem to feel sorry for his characters when he manipulates them to serve the needs of the play. Shakespeare is surely a "knavish lad" when he writes plays like A Midsummer Night 's Dream and encourages the audience to laugh at his characters ' foolishness. When Puck playfully puts all four lovers asleep, reciting nursery rhymes as he does so Ð "Jack shall have Jill, / Nought shall go ill" Ð one can almost hear Shakespeare humming under his breath as he manipulates the characters (3.3.45-46). Shakespeare is mischievous like Puck when he makes Bottom recite the lines, "O night, O night; alack, alack, alack"…
According to George Meredith, "the true test of comedy is that it shall awaken thoughtful laughter." In other words, the best examples of comedy lead to laughter but also contribute to the meaning of the work and contain some degree of subtle commentary. In Shakespeare's Macbeth, the porter scene following Duncan's heinous slaying evokes this brand of "thoughful laughter." Although the grotesque gatekeeper character immediately prompts comedy, it also hints at a deeper significance. This "thoughtful laughter" primarily provides comic relief, but it also contributes to the meaning of the work by serving as a metaphor for the gates of hell and as a transition from the murders to the continuation of the drama in a less supernatural setting.…
In Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream, metaphors concerning the moon, flowers, and Cupid are prevalent and have a significant impact on the play. The play focuses on a romantic situation between four Athenians: Hermia, Lysander, Helena, and Demetrius. As the story unravels, many comparisons are made to enhance the language and the messages that the characters try to convey. The moon is personified as a chaste woman who can be both gentle and fiery. Flowers are used as romantic symbols with the power to influence love. Cupid is personified as an armed child who strikes people's hearts even if that love was not meant to be.…
In Scene IV of Act I of Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, there’s a passage in which the King is speaking with Banquo and Macbeth. They are in the King’s palace, commenting about Macbeth becoming Thane of Cawdor. One of the literary resources that Shakespeare constantly uses is irony. In this case, he uses dramatic irony, in which the audience is aware of a situation that the other characters are not familiar with. In this specific circumstance, he uses the irony to build up the character of Macbeth, to let the audience judge him themselves.…
Numerous scholars who examine and analyze the comedy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare point to Puck as the most significant character in the play. Although Shakespeare masks Puck’s important role in the comedy by hiding him amongst the more powerful characters, it becomes apparent that Puck’s mischievous attitude and knack for creating chaos are what moves the play along without a designated climax (“The Comedies: ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream”). Puck is first introduced in “Act II Scene I” when a fairy notions Puck’s infamy by inquiring to him, “Either I mistake your shape and making quite, Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite called Robin Goodfellow” (II. i. 33-35). The fact that Puck is especially known for his ability to morph order to disorder, and likewise, foreshadows the idea of Puck playing an important role in the inevitable chaos and subsequent order between both the mortals and the fairies. Puck, the “shrewd and knavish” fairy assistant to Oberon, plays and undeniably important part in the constant battle between order and disorder in A Midsummer Night’s Dream through his intentional antics, comedic mistakes, and convoluted relationship with both fairies and mortals.…
Humour has a very important role in Romeo and Juliet as it creates a vast array of emotions and prepares the audience/reader for more serious and less humorous events to come later on in the play. The most obvious form of humour that is evident in the play is the use of puns, jokes and ironic comments. These forms of humor are…
David Bevington argues that the play represents the dark side of love. He writes that the fairies make light of love by mistaking the lovers and by applying a love potion to Titania's eyes, forcing her to fall love with an ass.[6] In the forest, both couples are beset by problems. Hermia and Lysander are both met by Puck, who provides some comic relief in the play by confounding the four lovers in the forest. However, the play also alludes to serious themes. At the end of the play, Hippolyta and Theseus, happily married, watch the play about the unfortunate lovers, Pyramus and Thisbe, and are able to enjoy and laugh at it.[7] Helena and Demetrius are both oblivious to the dark side of their love, totally unaware of what may have come of the events in the forest.…
What is the significance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream beginning with a conversation between Theseus and Hippolyta? Shakespeare could have not started the play with the King and Queen, but rather with Hermia and Egeus’s dispute over her future marriage. The reason Shakespeare did not chose to do that was because Theseus and Hippolyta foreshadow the outcomes of the bonds between Hermia and :Lysander.…
Another important quality Shakespeare portrays is the young characters ' love of merriment. Romeo and Mercutio have a contest of wits in Act Two, Scene Four (Shakespeare 93). Their contest of wits shows their love of merriment because it shows they love to joke around and have fun. Their puns prove they love to have fun because it shows they love to laugh. Also, Mercutio and Benvolio make fun of the Nurse in Act Two, Scene Four (Shakespeare 97). They make fun of her because they love to have fun. Their jokes show their love of merriment because it shows their humorous side. The young characters loved to have fun which makes them more interesting.…
Helena loves Demetrius but he is in love with Hermia but Hermia is in love with Lysander. Oberon tells Puck, his servant, to create a love potion and squeeze it into Demetrius’ eyes so he stops being rude to Helena and falls madly in love with her. Puck instead sprinkles love potion in Lysander and Robin sprinkled it in Demetrius’ eyes while resting and when they awoke they both saw Helena and fell in love with her. This fiasco causes a misunderstanding between Helena and Hermia. Helena believes that both Demetrius and Lysander and Hermia are playing a cruel trick on her and Hermia swears Helena as stolen her beloved Lysander from her. When the audience knows more about the other characters than they do is what makes this play a comedic one and after Hermia tried to attack Helena made the reader have an urge to keep reading and intrigued because it can relate to everyday life. Shakespeare’s diction allowed the reader to see the emotions both Helena and Hermia had on their faces. He emphasized the theme of the night and how the main characters are so infatuated with one’s look or appearance…
An earlier play entitled, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, by William Shakespeare, is a comedy outlining the destinies of two bothered couples. Shakespeare tactically demonstrates the love of two Athens individuals, Lysander and Hermia. The conflict is, Hermia’s father is against the marriage of the two and insists upon marriage with a man named Demetrius. However, the already complicated situation becomes more complex when Hermia discovers that Helena, a deep-rooted friend, is in love with Demetrius. My initial interest of the play arose during the introduction of this conflict.…
Hill, Hamlin. “Modern American Humor: The Janus Laugh.” College English. Vol. 25, No. 3 (Dec. 1963) pp. 170-176. National Council of Teachers of English. Web. 10 May. 2013…