Although Bottom is the locus of comedy in the play — he's a traditional Shakespearean clown — he also draws the audience's attention to serious themes, such as the relationship between reality and imagination.
His fluid identity, divinity, multiple paradoxes, and symbolic behavior all suggest things much more profound than his appearance. Bottom embodies both the human and the animal, the natural and the civilized, the carnal and the spiritual.
What one word best describes Nick Bottom? Boisterous, because he is so noisy, energetic, and cheerful.
What makes Bottom such a comical character? He has an infectious laugh and good sense of humor. He receives a small part in the play, even though he is a great actor. He is wholly unaware of his own ridiculousness.
Bottom the Ridiculous
In fact, of all of the characters in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Bottom is the most humorous. He is a weaver with high aspirations, believing himself to be a fine actor. However, Bottom tends to be overly confident. In fact, he tries the patience of director, Peter Quince, a carpenter.
Nick Bottom is a character in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream who provides comic relief throughout the play. A weaver by trade, he is famously known for getting his head transformed into that of a donkey by the elusive Puck.
Honest, tolerant, and inclined to reserve judgment, Nick often serves as a confidant for those with troubling secrets. After moving to West Egg, a fictional area of Long Island that is home to the newly rich, Nick quickly befriends his next-door neighbor, the mysterious Jay Gatsby.
In many ways, Nick is an unreliable narrator: he's dishonest about his own shortcomings (downplaying his affairs with other women, as well as his alcohol use), and he doesn't tell us everything he knows about the characters upfront (for example, he waits until Chapter 6 to tell us the truth about Gatsby's origins, even ...
Nick describes himself as "one of the few honest people that [he has] ever known," and he views himself as a hopeful man who can see the best in everyone.
Bottom wishes to play EVERY role in the play. He can't get enough of himself and really thinks he is the greatest ever to tread the boards. This brazen confidence lands Bottom in the most unexpected of situations, midway through the play.
Character Summary
Nicholas "Nick" Bottom is the main protagonist of the show. He is a struggling writer who is at the end of his rope, trying to compete against Shakespeare. He runs a theater troupe with his brother Nigel.
1. Why does Nick Bottom want to play all the parts? He wants to be the only one playing all the parts because he likes the attention and thinks he is the best actor of the group.
The irony here is in Bottom's name. He was turned into a donkey, or an ass, which is a synonym for the word “bottom.” This is an example of verbal irony, since the irony had to do with words or phrases.
Nick Bottom is a bit of a narcissist who believes that the most beautiful women in the world are capable of falling in love with him. All of this makes it very difficult for the quiet, nervous director, Peter Quince, to work with him.
He is turned into a donkey in order to bewitch Titania into falling in love with him, an animal, to make her pay for disobeying her husband.
A moral voice
Nick can therefore be seen as the moral compass of the story. He refuses Gatsby's offer of a dubious scheme that could make him a nice bit of money . When he meets Jordan, nothing happens between them at first because of the interior rules that act as brakes on my desires… .
Nick's attention to detail in his narrative is the element due to which many scholars argue in favour of his reliability. One of these scholars is Wayne C. Booth, who was the first that introduced reliability and unreliability, and marked Nick as a reliable narrator.
As he tells the reader in Chapter 1, he is tolerant, open-minded, quiet, and a good listener, and, as a result, others tend to talk to him and tell him their secrets. Gatsby, in particular, comes to trust him and treat him as a confidant.
Both Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby can be considered protagonists in their own ways, and Tom Buchanan, Daisy Buchanan's husband, is Gatsby's antagonist. Each character is very unique in their role.
Nick can be a kind person but is judgmental and rude at times to other people and their lifestyles. To continue, Nick is unreliable as a narrator because he makes rude comments about other people. Nick says, “I'm inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me” (Fitzgerald 1).
Nick is also unreliable because of his fondness for Gatsby, which affects his view of the story and is contrasted by his clear distaste for the other characters in the book.
i.) Here Bottom responds to fears that the play's tragic ending will be too intense for the audience of Athenian nobles. He worries that there could be dire consequences if the audience has too strong an emotional response to the performance.
Oberon, who is quarreling with his wife, Titania, uses the flower juice on her eyes. She falls in love with Bottom, who now, thanks to Robin Goodfellow, wears an ass's head.As the lovers sleep, Robin Goodfellow restores Lysander's love for Hermia, so that now each young woman is matched with the man she loves.
As the craftsmen rehearse, Puck enters and marvels at the scene of the “hempen homespuns” trying to act (III. i. 65). When Bottom steps aside, temporarily out of view of the other craftsmen, Puck transforms Bottom's head into that of an ass.