“A Midsummer Night’s Dream”: Rude Mechanicals versus William Shakespeare in Understanding an Audience’s Capacity for Imagination

A Midsummer Night's Dream is one of Shakespeare's earlier comedies and as with his others, he appeals to a very broad audience. In doing so, he relies upon his audience to use their imagination in obligatory ways. For example, Shakespeare simply adds a line “it is night” into his character’s dialogue and the audience, upon hearing these words, is expected to “see” the darkness on stage. Utilizing this technique many times over in his plays, Shakespeare offers up the impression that he anticipates his audience’s ability to use their imagination with comparative ease. In contrast, the rude mechanicals consisting of Bottom the weaver and an assembly of his friends, go into the woods to rehearse their own play (Pyramus and Thisbe) and seem to repeatedly miscalculate their audiences ability to make use of imagination.
Subsequently, Act III Scene I opens with the rude mechanicals discussing the ability of the audience to handle the character Pyramus getting killed with...