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Comedy In A Midsummer Night's Dream

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In the play A Midsummer Night 's Dream written by William Shakespeare there are a lot of elements of comedy, and one of those elements of comedy are insults. In act 1, scene 1 Egeus, Hermia 's father, requested of Theseus that Hermia should marry a man named Demetrius, but Hermia loves Lysander. Theseus states that if Hermia does not follow the Athenian law and do as her father says she will become a nun, or be put to death. Lysander makes a smart remark that Demetrius should marry Egeus because he already has his love: “You have her father 's love; Demetrius Let me have Hermia 's: do you marry him” (1.1.88-89). This is insult comedy because he is telling Demetrius to wed a Egeus. This is a “Ha Ha” funny element of comedy because during the …show more content…

Another insult that Lysander had stated was directed towards Hermia, this time in act 3, scene 2. Recently Puck, a mischievous fairy, had rubbed cupid’s flower on the wrong person 's eyes; unfortunately it had been Lysander. This made Lysander fall in love with Helena, not his true love, Hermia. When Lysander expressed his love to Helena it upset her because she thought Demetrius and Lysander were playing a joke on her. This then made Hermia mad at Helena, because now Lysander loves Helena. Now Hermia is wanting to get at Helena but Lysander keeps stepping in the middle to protect Helena and insult Hermia. He says, “Away you Ethiope...Get you gone, you Dwarf; you minimus, you hindering of knot grass made; you bead, you acorn.” (3.2. 228, 329-331). When Lysander calls Hermia an “Ethiope” he is making a racist joke. This insult would be humorous to his audience because he is “roasting” Hermia. The rest of the quote is making fun of how short she is. The readers found this to be a “ha-ha” funny element of comedy because of his word choice.Lysander is over exaggerating and using hyperboles to compare her to Miniscule things like a Dwarf, knot of grass, bead, and acorn.To modern readers it may be funny because the way society is today if you have the right audience anything is funny. Shakespeare incorporated this into the play as a way to show emotion in a humorous

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