In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Nick Bottom undergoes a bewildering transformation. When his head is turned into that of a donkey’s, this helps to not only forward the plot, but serves a figurative meaning as well. Shakespeare himself seems to acknowledge as much in the play’s dialogue – “I see their knavery: this is to make an ass of me” (Act III, Scene 1, Line 940) – skillfully crafting irony to drive home the point of Bottom as the butt (or “ass,” if you will) of the play’s biggest comedy gag. Bottom himself, however, remains almost entirely oblivious to the exact nature and true extent of his transformation, as does another key character he comes to interact with later on: Titania. The fairy queen unconsciously becomes smitten with the donkey-headed
