Whereas
Puck’s humor is often mischievous and subtle,
the comedy surrounding the overconfident weaver
Nick Bottom is hilariously overt.
The central figure in the subplot involving the craftsmen’s production
of the Pyramus and Thisbe story, Bottom dominates his fellow actors
with an extraordinary belief in his own abilities (he thinks he
is perfect for every part in the play) and his comical incompetence
(he is a terrible actor and frequently makes rhetorical and grammatical
mistakes in his speech). The humor surrounding Bottom often stems
from the fact that he is totally unaware of his own ridiculousness;
his speeches are overdramatic and self-aggrandizing, and he seems
to believe that everyone takes him as seriously as he does himself.
This foolish self-importance reaches its pinnacle after Puck transforms
Bottom’s head into that of an ass. When
Titania, whose eyes have
been anointed with a love potion, falls in love with
the now ass-headed Bottom, he believes that the devotion of the
beautiful, magical fairy queen is nothing out of the ordinary and
that all of the trappings of her affection, including having servants
attend him, are his proper due. His unawareness of the fact that
his head has been transformed into that of an ass parallels his
inability to perceive the absurdity of the idea that Titania could
fall in love with him.