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A Midsummer Night's Dream: A Character Analysis of Bottom

Summary:   Provides a character analysis of Bottom, from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Nights Dream. Reveals the symbolism of his name. Examines his appeal in the play.

The play A midsummer Night's Dream, by William Shakespeare, both made me laugh and instilled some very important moral lessons; lessons about love, being true to yourself, following your own heart, and many others. Through all the laughing and the lessons, there was on character that stood out, a someone that will make you laugh but still hold a very special posture of seriousness. The person who I found most interesting, most realistic, funniest and most moralistic, was Bottom, for who else could play an ass, a victim of magical love, a Romeo and an actor all in the same play"

One of the things I find special about Bottom is his name and how much he lives up to it. You can look at it and decipher its meaning sin many ways. One of the ways I see it, is how there is no bottom to his cleverness; constantly making jokes, always funny yet never old, Bottom was a character I'm sure I'll never meet anywhere Else. Not only was there no limit to his wit, but he even played as a bottom. Puck turned his head into an ass's head before the rehearsal, and upon awakening, Titania fell into a deep, sweet love with him. In my opinion, the lesson Shakespeare attempted to teach here was that there is no and should be no restrictions on who you can love. Love is confusing on its own, and with restrictions, it has a disastrous effect on the unfortunate lovers caught within

Bottom is not only witty, clever and a great actor, but he is also funny. It's very rare that I laugh out loud reading a book, or play for that matter, but there was something about Bottom's humor that caught me like your first time with a Jack-in-the-box; it simply jumped out and I was laughing before I knew it. Especially at the scene in the play when Quince is assigning the parts of the Pyramis and Thisbe play. Bottom continually acts out the parts of the others, thinking he can act out every scene solo. It's hilarious, and at the play the whole audience was laughing.

Another characteristic of Bottom that I found appealing was his changing personality. He adapted to his roles like no character I've seen before. Before being turned into an ass, Bottoms speech contained errors and sometimes didn't make sense at all. As an ass, we witnessed him gradually turning more wise and literate. After Puck returned things to normal, and Bottom was once again amongst his own kin performing for Duke Theseus and Duchess Hippolyta, his speech came back and errors-in-the-lines-of-Bottom returned.

Even though the play was very short and we couldn't really learn a lot about the characters, I still found Bottom to be one of the most appealing characters I've ever read about. He gave lessons, made you laugh AND acted all in one, short play. Also, readers can somewhat look at Bottom as a mentor. Sure he has his problems, but people love him (as shown when he finally shows up for the play) despite that, plus he's funny. A great character overall, and one of the many pros of A Midsummer Night's Dream.