How Does a Midsummer Night's Dream' Use Stock Characters While Incorporating Elements of Subversion Typically Found in Comedy?

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How does a Midsummer Night's Dream' use stock characters while incorporating elements of subversion typically found in comedy? Comedy delights in the events of a briefly subverted world, incorporating recurrent subject matter that is socially disruptive. Within 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', the younger characters, such as Hermia, challenge authority, while older hierarchies within the play are dislocated. Multiple stock comic characters are used throughout, with some applying to more than one of the characters within the play. This gives 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' a truly subversive power, with characters that desire to briefly destabilise authority and harmony, before returning to what Frye described as the 'New World', a different world, but one I will demonstrate as slightly different from the old world it once was. It could be argued that within 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', Puck is The Lord of Misrule, as he is granted temporary licence to orchestrate the chaos and confusion of the lovers in the forest. This is subversive in that, usually, Puck is merely Oberon's servant; 'fetch me this herb, and be thou here again'. Now however, he could be seen as the trickster or trouble maker. A particular example of this can be seen in Act 3, Scene 1, in which Puck transforms Bottom's head into that of an Ass, comical because it is a basic example of visual, almost slapstick, humour. Following this, Puck gleefully declares that his 'mistress with a monster is in love', potentially also making him a clever, cynical wit. During the character's time in the forest, or what Frye describes as the 'Green World', the hierarchies are very much distorted, resulting in Puck seeing himself much higher up in the hierarchy than usual, 'what fools these mortal be', and thus we see the slaves becoming the masters. In festival typically, we all become maters and the subversion of
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