He then comes upon Titania who wakes up, looks at Bottom, and falls in love with him due to the potion on her eyes. Titania tells Bottom how beautiful he is and how much she loves him. Once again, Bottom is confused, but he enjoys the affection from Titania, so he goes along with it.
Titania calls some of her fairy assistants, such as Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustardseed, to attend to her new friend by bringing him food and taking care of him. Eventually, Titania grows tired of Bottom's ceaseless talking, so she decides to magically make him silent then they leave. In scene 2 Oberon, in a different part of the woods, meets Puck who tells him how Titania has fallen in love with the donkey-headed man that he helped create.
Puck also verifies that he has put some of the potion on the Athenian man's eyes. Just then Hermia and Demetrius come by, and Oberon tells Puck that this is the man he meant. Puck agrees it is the woman he previously saw, but that is not the man that he put the potion onto.
Hermia accuses Demetrius of killing her love, Lysander. Demetrius tells her that he has no idea where Lysander is nor does he care, so Hermia leaves. Demetrius decides he has grown tired, so he goes to sleep. Oberon then scolds Puck for putting the potion onto the wrong man's eyes. Bottom is the only character who mingles freely and openly among the humans and the fairies, at least on stage anyway. Puck moves in and out of both worlds, too, but his pranks on the human characters are done in secret.
In fact, Bottom cavorts with the fairies like it's no big deal and never really worries about the fact that Titania's love for him is completely inappropriate. At one point, he admits that it doesn't make sense for Titania to love him but then he basically shrugs and says "reason and love keep little company" 3. Bottom's comfort in the fairy world is similar to the way he happily performs for the court while being oblivious to their mockery.
Although he doesn't know it, Bottom, a weaver by trade, manages to "weave" or fuse together the fairy realm and the human worlds of the tradesmen and nobility. In the same way, Puck weaves these worlds together by traveling back and forth between the two. Bottom's particular brand of obliviousness makes him a character who represents what the play is all about: not playing by the rules.
Without any self-consciousness, Bottom takes advantage of an opportunity to blur the boundaries of social hierarchy.
It's a little joke of Bottom's, and Shakespeare's too, no doubt. The theater is indeed magic, as it's a place where even fools like Bottom can traverse and triumph in all the other spheres of the world. Parents Home Homeschool College Resources.
Study Guide. By William Shakespeare. Previous Next. Bottom Bottom is a weaver and one of the Athenian craftsmen who are referred to as "the Mechanicals. Bottom's Transformation During play rehearsal, Bottom's head is transformed by Puck into that of an "ass" donkey , making him the butt of the play's biggest joke. Bottom takes these events in stride, having no notion that his head has been replaced with that of an ass.
He comments that his friends have acted like asses in leaving him, and he introduces himself to the fairies. Titania looks on him with undisguised love as he follows her to her forest bower. As Act III is the first act in which all three groups appear, the fantastic contrasts between them are at their most visible. Their proposal to let the audience know that it is night by having a character play the role of Moonshine exemplifies their straightforward, literal manner of thinking and their lack of regard for subtlety.
In their earthy and practical natures, the craftsmen stand in stark contrast to the airy and impish fairies. It throws love increasingly out of balance and brings the farce into its most frenzied state. Obviously, the delicate fairy queen is dramatically unsuited to the clumsy, monstrous craftsman. Shakespeare develops this romance with fantastic aplomb and heightens the comedy of the incongruity by making Bottom fully unaware of his transformed state.
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