This
essay received full marks an explores the presentation of the character of
Bottom.
A Midsummer
Night’s Dream is a dramatic comedy by English playwright William Shakespeare,
in which four plot lines are interwoven into the main narrative of the play.
One of these belongs to Shakespeare’s “mechanicals”, a group of amateur actors
given the task to perform their own play for Duke Theseus’ wedding
celebrations. One of them is Nick Bottom, whose primary occupation is as a
manual labourer, specifically a weaver, and therefore working-class. However,
as he leaves the “Urban World” of Athens, and enters the forest, which is
likened to Northrop Frye’s literary concept of the “Green World”, he undergoes
a supernatural transformation, thanks to the mischief of Robin Goodfellow,
before lying with the Fairy Queen Titania. The themes of the supernatural and
transformation are embodied through his character, and thus he plays a
significant role. Furthermore, many critics have argued that he also fulfils
the role of the “Shakespearean fool”, whom is not who he is perceived to be, despite
literally becoming the butt of the
play’s biggest joke.
As a member of the mechanicals,
Bottom is important in that the mechanicals introduce the play within a play
structure of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by performing their own play, “The Most
Lamentable Comedy and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisbe”. Within the play’s
contradictory title “Lamentable Comedy”, Shakespeare clarifies to his audience
that despite the tragic undertones of his own play, it is to be treated as a
comedy. This is embodied through the bawdy humour of the mechanicals, accompanied
by their unrefined dialogue. When Bottom refers to a “French crown-colour beard”,
this is a reference to baldness, which at the time was identified as a symptom
of the venereal disease syphilis. Furthermore, Shakespeare writes the
mechanicals’ dialogue in prose, as opposed to blank verse or in rhyming
couplets like the Athenians, to provide a direct contrast from the etiquette of
high society in Athens, therefore confirming their working-class position. In
Elizabethan times, this would have meant members of the audience could
personally identify with this specific social group portrayed, and while some
critics claim Shakespeare patronisingly links the working class to bawdy
humour, critic Allen argues that later in his encounter with Titania, Bottom “remains
courteous and complacent, and further demonstrates matter-of-factness”, thus
demonstrating it is wrong to classify Bottom as the stock oaf character.
Rather, Bottom satisfies the
role of the Shakespearean fool, a role fulfilled in Shakespeare’s other works
such as the fool in King Lear, or Touchstone in As You Like It. In the latter’s
case, while Touchstone is at first characterised as a fool, he also makes
perceptive comments about foolishness, such as:
The more pity, that fools may
not speak wisely what
Wise men do foolishly.
With
regards to Bottom, when the audience is first introduced to him, he does appear
to be the fool who has displaced confidence in himself when he claims he could
play all of the roles including Thisbe, in a “monstrous little voice”; the
contradictory nature of this statement highlights his idiocy. This has been
interpreted as a contemporary representation regarding Shakespeare’s own
relationship with amateur theatre companies, and the transition of his works
from script to stage. However, in undergoing his own physical transformation from
human to ass and venturing into the Green World, Bottom begins to make
perceptive comments, specifically when he links the central themes of love and reason
in saying:
“And yet, to say the truth,
reason and love keep little company together nowadays…”
Despite his
language gaining further eloquence in Act IV Scene I with the addition of
French through the repetition of “good monsieur”, Bottom does not speak in full
verse, which Shakespeare uses to suggest to the audience that Bottom’s
transformation is only temporary, and that he will revert back to being the overtly-confident
fool of the mechanicals. This is confirmed when the production of Pyramus and
Thisbe takes place, and Bottom proceeds to make grammatical errors for the
length of the performance, referring to “Ninny’s tomb” as opposed to “Ninus”.
Through such grammatical errors, Shakespeare conveys his frustrations
concerning the tendencies of amateur theatre companies to focus their attention
towards the bigger aspects of productions, rather than correcting smaller, but
necessary details that the success of the play depends on. This is demonstrated
in the male audience’s response, in that they are not fully immersed in the
world of Pyramus and Thisbe, specifically when Demetrius replies to Theseus:
“No wonder, my lord: one lion
may when many asses do.”
By contrast
of the actual audience of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and their total immersion
into Shakespeare’s play, the male audience of Pyramus and Thisbe is indifferent
to what is set before them, as Shakespeare wishes to demonstrate how the
melodrama and grammatical errors lead to the failure of the play in its ability
to encapsulate the audience.
However while Bottom’s physical
transformation may be perceived as having comical effect, it embodies the
overarching theme of transformation, both physically and spiritually. The
significance of transformation in A Midsummer Night’s Dream derives from Ovid’s
Metamorphoses, a powerful source of Shakespeare’s inspiration, a collection of
poems in which humans and Gods are transformed into forces of nature. Despite
literally becoming the butt of the
play’s joke in becoming an “ass”, Bottom also transforms, in that he transcends
social class structures by lying with Titania when entering the Green World.
Even nowadays, a working-class man having a sexual relationship with royalty
would be unheard of, let alone in Elizabethan times when class systems were
more prominent. Bottom acknowledges this fact in his surprise of Titania’s
artificial attraction, after she tells him:
And thy fair virtue’s force
perforce doth move me
On the first view to say, to
swear, I love thee.
Because
Titania’s language is written in rhyming couplets, it adds a supernatural, if
not contrived nature to their dialogue, which Shakespeare uses to demonstrate
the artificiality of her attraction to Bottom, making his bewilderment to this
justified.
Methinks, mistress, you should
have little reason for that.
Furthermore,
the transgressive nature of Titania and Bottom’s relationship is heightened by
Bottom’s upper transformation, thereby the relationship borders on bestiality.
This is shown when Robin tells Oberon:
My mistress with a monster is in
love,
The reference to “monster”
indicates that the relationship is wrong. The notion of negative transformation
is cited by critic Nostbakken as having three sources, “mythological story,
witchcraft and the overactive imagination.” While in Elizabethan times, these
sources focus on the power of women to govern the physical experience of men,
thus suggesting an anxiety about contemporary gendered roles, the source of
Bottom’s negative transformation, or even blatant deformity, is the male
fairies Puck and Oberon, and his relationship with Titania, thus demonstrating
how in an all’s well that ends well play, the restoration of order and harmony
relies on a male hierarchy.
Therefore Bottom’s character is
presented as a contrast between idiocy in the Urban World, to eloquence and
great perception in the realm of the fairies. He may be overtly confident in
his enthusiasm to play every character in the mechanicals’ production, which
Shakespeare uses to deliver his own frustrations of amateur theatre companies and
their adaptations of his works. However, as a “weaver” between the Urban and
Green Worlds, Bottom is a unique character in his ability to fully immerse
himself in his transcendence of humanity by interacting with Titania and her
servants, and in doing so transcends the social codes of Elizabethan society regarding
class structure. Thus, characterising Bottom as the stock character fool is unjust,
as he is presented multifaceted, although his performance as Pyramus does him
no justice.
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