In A Midsummer Night’s Dream there is much emphasis on the foolishness of love e.g. the love-hate relationship between Demetrius and Helena. However the play concludes with the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta that was “interrupted” in the first act. However, this time, instead of focusing exclusively on the special union of one couple, the play allows a triple wedding to occur. This triple wedding amplifies the happiness of each couple's love and diminishes the importance of the jealousy somewhat. The weddings are not even mentioned in the actual play, even though they did take place.
Shakespeare also uses A Midsummer Night’s Dream and particularly the last Act to make fun of the style of many playwrights at the time, including himself in his earlier years. When Quince presents his play in the prologue, Shakespeare uses the opportunity to parody many of the stage productions of his day. It was still the practice in Elizabethan times to introduce the play and important characters in the form of a lengthy prologue. Even though Shakespeare employed the prologue in some of his earlier plays, he stopped the practice early in his career. For example, A Midsummer Night's Dream has no prologue. By making Quince present an elaborate and laborious prologue, Shakespeare is laughing at this dramatic practice and perhaps, at himself in his earlier years.
Shakespeare also laughs at some of his earlier plays as Pyramus and Thisby has a parody to Romeo and Juliet. They both have a situation where someone kills themselves because they believe their lover to be dead and then the supposedly deceased person enters and kills themselves for real. Perhaps, he is also making fun of the melodramatic way in which these lovers die in Pyramus and Thisby’s overacted dying speeches.
Use of mythological characters in the play helps it appeal to the broadest possible Elizabethan audience. The upper-classes would have been quite familiar with the classical mythologies about Oberon and the “lower-class” people in the audience would have been more likely to recognize Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, a traditional, malign mythological character who still appeared in many folktales at that time. The play concludes with fairies singing and Puck addressing the audience. Their mystical presence is positive and magical as they bless the newlyweds. Puck addresses the audience in the closing lines of the play telling them that everything they have just seen is a dream. Every vision, every touch of magic that was just enacted, he tells them, can all be explained by dreams and slumber and the power of imagination as encountered when reason sleeps. The use of recognised mythological characters helps make the play’s message more relevant to the audience and make their imagination all the more vivid. In this sense, Act V was a most successful conclusion to the play in the days when it was first preformed.
Act Five begins with a philosophical comment from Theseus about the truth of the lover’s tale about love and confusion in the woods. He comments that “The lunatic, the lover, and the poet / Are of imagination all compact.” Theseus goes on to explain that in all three cases, (that is, the lover, the madman and the poet), the problem seems to be a lack of ability to distinguish between illusion and reality. The remaining lines are devoted to backing up this opinion and he goes on to say they have “such seething brains / Such shaping fantasies / that apprehend More than cool reason / ever comprehends.” He believes that all three, moreover, do nothing but invent miracles and describe impossibilities – the poet in particular giving “to airy nothing / A local habitation and a name.” This serves to challenge the audience's notions about reality and imagination. To the audience of the time it would have been clear that reason was more important than imagination and that use of the brain was what set man apart from beasts. Theseus’ comment reflected current opinion. It is at this moment when Shakespeare seems to comment on his own profession as an inventor of fantasy stories in the theatre, perhaps even challenging his own relevance.
Irony also plays a part in our perception of both the last act and the rest of the play. When Theseus says that he “never may believe / These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.” This is ironic, since Theseus himself is a mythological character!
Also, it appears that Hippolyta is more open to the lover’s story, pointing out that it involved “all their minds transfigured so together,” suggesting something more than mere fantasy. What matters, she points out, is not the “truth,” but rather the ability to tell the story with skill so that it “grows to something of great constancy” uniting the teller and the members of the audience in a moment of shared fantasy. This conflict gives you an insight into the relationship between Hippolyta and Theseus. Perhaps they too are not as happy as the appearance “put on” by Shakespeare; originally Theseus won Hippolyta in conquest and both the first and last acts show clear differences of opinion between the two. In the first Act Hippolyta feels sorry for the plight of Lysander and Hermia but Theseus is less sympathetic and they argue in the last act (see above) so maybe the supposed harmony of Act V is problematic?
The final act of Midsummer Night’s Dream is also added by Shakespeare because it is rich in comedy.
When the lovers enter and Theseus calls for a brief of the entertainments for the night, the Mechanical’s Play comes into the view. Philostrate, Theseus’ Master of Revels, gives Theseus a list of what “sports are ripe” which Theseus proceeds to read out.
At this moment Shakespeare first injects real humour into the Act. There is a sharp contrast between the other, grander entertainments like the “riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,” and the contradicting descriptions of the mechanical’s play which Philostrate describes as “tragical” one minute and the next says “Made mine eyes water with mirth”. The phrase used by Philostrate to describe the play, “tragic mirth”, just about sums up the amusing contrasts of the Mechanical’s play.
Although Philostrate finds the play amusing due to its pathetic nature it would pain him to see it again and his whole role in the play is devoted almost solely to convincing Theseus not to watch the play. He describes it as having “not one word apt, one player fitted”.
However Theseus is intrigued by these contrasting descriptions of the play and compares it to “hot ice and wondrous strange snow.” Not surprisingly he demands to see the play and although Philostrate tries valiantly to convince him not to, Theseus insists on seeing the play. It is then comical to see the way in which he tries so hard to convince Theseus but is simply overruled.
When the actual play begins there are many examples of physical humour, amusing characterisation, comic dialogue and situational irony.
For the first example of comedy, Shakespeare has Quince mangle his prologue by a failure to follow punctuation. What Quince means to say, for instance, is “Our true intent is all for your delight. We are not here that you should here repent you. The actors are at hand. . . ”. Here is what he actually says: “Our true intent is. All for your delight, we are not here. That you should here repent you, the actors are at hand.” Theseus comments, dryly, that “This fellow does not stand upon points,” meaning that he doesn’t bother about over politeness – or that he doesn’t follow punctuation marks! Much that Quince says in his opening prologue doesn’t make sense and he contradicts himself more than once, when he says that, “we come not to offend …” obviously acknowledging his own presence in the palace yet later on in his prologue he says “We are not here.” He is obviously so afraid of being executed for scaring or offending the “gentles” that he cannot “speak properly” and get across what he actually wants to say. This is a good way of making the play introduction funny although it serves the double purpose of making you feel sorry for Quince (just as the trite criticisms by the aristocrats make you feel pity for the other mechanicals). This is a good way of stirring conflicting emotions in the play, you feel sorry for the mechanicals yet you laugh at their misfortune.
Quince’s second speech is also then, amusing as he basically tells the audience the whole plot before they have even heard any of the other actors.
The characters and the roles they play are also amusing. Starveling is “Moonshine”; it is, of course, funny that someone should act the role of light! Then there is Snout who tells the audience about how he plays the part of a talking wall and finally Snug is the terrifying “Lion” who announces to the audience not to be afraid because he isn’t really a lion. This is also an example of physical and visual comedy as the actors are all adult men and would look foolish standing up and trying to represent some moonshine, a wall or (like Flute who plays Thisbe), a woman.
Each actor prefaces his performance with a small self-introduction. Snout, for instance, announces that he is performing the part of a Wall, which has a hole, or “chink,” through which Pyramus and Thisby “did whisper often, very secretly.” If we consider this then Snout would look extremely funny holding up a brick to show he is a wall and holding out his two fingers to represent a chink in a wall. It is also comical that a wall should announce itself in this manner. Snout also describes the lovers as “fearful”, hardly an apt description; this also helps add rich humour to the “play within a play”.
Bottom’s Pyramus is unsurprisingly melodramatic - arriving at the “wall” to meet Thisby, he speaks a piece of incredibly bad poetry: “O grim-looked night! / O night with hue so black! / O night, which ever art when ever day is not! / O night, O night, alack alack / I fear my Thisby’s promise is forgot.” This is another example of brilliant comedy in the play and is Shakespeare’s way of making fun of some of the actors of his time who would attempt poetry on stage but deliver it badly. Bottom talks to the wall as if it were a person, thanking it when it opens its “chink” and cursing it when he can’t find Thisby - “Thanks, courteous wall … O wicked wall”. It is also amusing when Bottom comes “out of character” to reply to Theseus’ tongue and in cheek comment that the wall should curse again. It is funny that he should respond with such sincerity when Theseus is clearly making fun of him; it is also humorous that any actor should come out of character to correct someone in the audience, reprimanding them for misinterpretations - “No in truth, sir, he should not.”
Thisby then shows up and we see a fully grown man talking to another fully grown man in a mock high voice about how his “cherry lips have often kissed thy stones”. This causes Pyramus to announce (absurdly) “I see a voice; now will I to the chink, To spy if I can hear my Thisby’s face.” It makes no sense that he should “hear” his lover’s face or “see” her voice once again making Bottom the subject of ridicule as he blithely carries on heedless to the fact that he has just confused his lines and offered nonsense to his audience.
The two lovers speak through the hole in the wall and Bottom once again comically confuses his lines in this dialogue and says that he, “like, Limander” is trusty still, but he means Leander rather than Limander just as he meant Ninus’ tomb rather than Ninny’s tomb. As well as making verbal mistakes he also has to kiss Thisbe through the crack in Snout’s fingers, another example of physical comedy. After this the Wall announces that he has performed his part and leaves the stage, and at this Hippolyta comments that “This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard!”; once again Shakespeare is using the audience to the Mechanical’s play to draw attention to the nonsensical fashion in which the players conduct their parts. In this case, a wall announcing that he has played his part, with complete ignorance as to how his audience will receive his meagre performance.
The next example of comedy is when Snug enters as the Lion and he announces to the audience not to be afraid as he isn’t really a lion - “Then know that I, as Snug the joiner am,” the audience makes several witty comments about this statement and the representation by Starveling of Moonshine comes in for similar critique.
Next Thisbe enters the scene at Ninus’ tomb and, upon being “scared” off by the Lion; she drops her mantle and flees the scene. Not long after this Pyramus enters the scene and the Lion disappears. After thanking the sun and the moon for their light he finds Thisby’s mantle and fears she has been killed and calls for his “dainty duck”, once again ridiculing himself and then he takes out his sword, bidding it “wound The pap of Pyramus / Ay, that left pap, Where heart doth hop / Thus die I, thus, thus, thus”. As if that monosyllabic death speech weren’t stupid enough, he continues, announcing “Now I am dead / Now I am fled / My soul is in the sky / Tongue lose thy light / Moon take thy flight / Now die, die, die, die, die”. It is absurd that a dead person would tell of how their tongue would “lose its light” or even speak at all, in response to such absurdity, Theseus suggests that, “With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover, and prove an ass.” This is an unwittingly apt comment to make about Bottom who had recently been turned into an ass. Finally, Thisby returns and finds the dead body of Pyramus. After mourning the loss of his “lily lips,” “cherry nose,” and “yellow cheeks” (if we pause to think about these descriptions for a second then we can realise that they are hardly complimentary, adding another piece of comedy) Thisby stabs herself and the play ends. Then the audience comments that the “Moonshine and Lion are left to bury the dead.” But to add a last piece of comedy, Bottom once again comes ridiculously out of character when he is meant to be dead yet leaps up to assure the audience that the wall cannot bury the dead for it has left the stage.
During the Mechanical’s play, the language is laboured and the cause for much mirth. From time to time, the Aristocratic audience cannot help making snide comments. When Snout, the wall, speaks his part, Theseus remarks, "Would you desire lime and hair to speak better?" Then when the audience wonders if the lion would also be made to speak, Demetrius replies, "One lion may, when many asses do." At the end of the play, Theseus announces that they should all go to bed since they have "over watched" during the night. This is another way in which Shakespeare adds to the value of the final scene of the play. This helps present the aristocrats as sleepy humans rather than simply “upper-class citizens” with a harsh attitude to the mechanicals.
After just watching the world of the craftsman, the world of the gentry is transcended at midnight, "fairy time." and almost on cue, the fairies appear, bringing the three worlds together once again, this time in Athens rather than in the woods. As is fitting for the night of a wedding, the fairies bless the beds of the newly-married Theseus and Hippolyta, as well as those of the other couples, so that they will “ever true in loving be,” and have no deformed or ill-fated children. When the fairies bless the beds of the wedded gentry, it is the perfect culmination to the play. The last figure onstage is Puck, whose concluding speech suggests that he and the fairies have put the entire play on for us, the timeless external audience. “If we shadows have offended/” he explains, “Think but this, and all is mended / That you have but slumbered here / While these visions did appear.” In other words, if we did not like the play we’ve just seen, all we need to do is imagine that we – like Titania, Lysander, Demetrius, Bottom and the rest – simply dreamed the entire thing. Just as the men and women in the “Pyramus and Thisbe” play were, in a sense, made to perform a drama by fairy magic (it was put on because of the lovers’ weddings which only came about as a result of fairy interference) Puck suggests that we too may be in the magical thrall of powers we do not understand. This, however, is not something we should fear, but instead something we should enjoy. So, too, we the audience – willing victims of the enchantment that is theatre – will be made happy if we allow ourselves submit to its magic. “Give me your hands if we be friends,” Puck concludes, “And Robin shall restore amends.” This frank speech reflects the way that all the characters in the play have two sides to their character; we not only see Puck’s mischievous side but his good side as well. The action has reached a happy and logical conclusion, with no loose strings left hanging. Shakespeare has unified his plot, by weaving together the three disparate worlds of the play but the final speech reminds us that all of the characters are still complex.
By Andrew Kirke 4S