Pd6: Lydia N

The three funniest scenes in Shakespeare's A Midsummer's Night Dream are acts 1.2, 3.1, and 5.1.  These scenes are funny because the characters tend to have interesting personality traits, like cockiness, anxiety, or other things that make for humorous situations.  For example, in act 1, scene 2, the Rude Mehanicals meet for the first time to work on their play.  Bottom takes charge, which is funny because he is obnoxiously confident.  Some of the other characters are worried about silly things, too, like if the lion's roar will scare the ladies in the audience.  Then, in act 3, scene 1, Bottom turns into a donkey.  Even when the crew is absolutely terrified of him and run away, Bottom's confidence holds strong.  On top of that, Titania promptly falls in love with him due to the potion Puck put on her eyes, which is hilariously ironic, considering Titania literally falls in love with an ass.  Finally, in act 5, scene 1, the Rude Mechanicals put on their play.  While Bottom's boastful personality does make this scene funny, there is a lot more too it.  Just about everything that could go wrong in the scene goes wrong.  In fact, so much so that the audience in the play thinks it's meant to be a funny play.  As one could imagine, this makes for quite the scene when reading this play.  Everything went wrong, from the 'wall' forgetting his lines to a dog being flung offstage, and much more.  The play's main source of humor is the Rude Mechanicals.  In each scene mentioned above, the Rude Mechanicals are involved in some way, whether it be just Bottom or the whole crew.  No matter the setting, Shakespeare finds a way to make their parts funny in ironic and creative ways.