In his book, A Midsummer Night's Dream, William Shakespeare uses humor of different types throughout the play making the book rib cracking. The characters are given attributes that make them seem foolish and not everything they do goes according to their expectations. This ere are three different types of humor he employs when writing the book and they ate seen in either the scenes or in the characters themselves. The first kind of humor he applies in his work is the use of oxymoron. This is through their foolishness portrayed throughout the book. The book is full of foolish scenes where the actors act in ways that make the play so funny. The first scene is seen where Quince calls the play they want to act out to the audience "the most lamentable comedy," (Shakespeare 9). This may seem a little absurd because as readers we expect t a comedy will make us laugh and not make us lament about it. It however, turns out he was correct as they perform so poorly in the stage it makes the reader lament about the whole thing. It is so funny how he makes the remark innocently thinking that he is stating how the play will be so good but using a wrong term for it. it so foolish of Bottom to say "I'll speak in a monstrous little voice," (Shakespear 43) where he means he will speak in a very small voice, but instead of using the right term he replaces the work very small with monstrous. Helena is not left out as she exclaims at one point "oh devilish- holy fray!" Act 3, scene 2, line 129I find this as hilarious as people tend to sometimes use exclamations that do not make sense. There is no way something can be holly and devilish.
The other way Shakespeare uses humor is with malapropism where the play employs confusion of words. Bottom is the victim of this device as he acts so educated while in the real sense he portrays a lot of foolishness it makes one laugh. I always find it so funny when a person pretends to know something yet they do the exact opposite with their actions and words. Bottom makes one laugh when he uses long dialogues, which does not make sense. Even he himself does not know what the words mean. Such cases are evident when he says "I have an exposition of sleep come upon me," (Shakespeare 35). Here is trying to say that he has an exposition to sleep. He uses the term deposition yet he is not sure what it means making him look foolish. The other one comes from Quince when he uses the word "paramour to describe how Bottom is perfect when it comes to the use of a small little voice. He wanted to use the word paragon, but ends up using the word paramour-meaning mistress. What makes this so funny is that Bottom ends up becoming a donkey paramour to Titania.
The most outrageous humor is comes up with the use of mistaken identity or satire. Here Shakespeare applies satire by making the characters confused especially in the part of falling in love. There is confusion everywhere as the love portion Puck prepared makes everyone fall in love with the wrong person. It is so hilarious how they end up fighting over love. I always find it so funny when two people fight over love something they have no control over (Shakespeare 41-62).
The part I find most hilarious is the part where Quince uses the term paramour instead of paragon and them it happens when Bottom becomes the paramour donkey belonging to Titania. It is so funny because it was a mere confusion of term, but in the end, it becomes true and more so when it happens to Bottom who always pretends to be so learned. This is hilarious as I find it funny in life when the people we do not expect to do certain things ends up doing it.
Works Cited
Shakespeare, William. A Mid Summer Nights's Dream. New York: Plain Label Books. Print.
