Same Ending Different Play

While A Midsummer’s Night Dream is a rich comedy with many striking similarities to other Shakespearean plays, I found one small detail of similarity particularly interesting. In both A Midsummer’s Night Dream and All’s Well That Ends Well, a character comes onstage at the end of the play and directly addresses the audience. In the end of MND, the mischievous fairy Puck calmly states if anything in the play was offensive, simply imagine it to be merely a dream.

“If we shadows have offended,

Think but this, and all is mended,

That you have but slumber’d here

While these visions did appear.” [V.I. 409-412]

He then goes on in the last lines of the play to implore for the audience’s applause, saying “Give me your hands if we be friends…” [V.I. 423] This address to the audience is strikingly similar to the address given by the King at the end of All’s Well That Ends Well, in which the king practically begs for the audience’s approval.

“All is well ended if this suit be won,

That you express content; which we will pay

With strife to please you, day exceeding day.” [V.III. 335-338]

Then, just like in A Midsummer’s Night Dream, the final lines are a plea for applause: “Your gentle hands lend us, and take our hearts.” [V.III. 340]

The interesting difference between the two plays however, is why Shakespeare used a direct address to conclude the play. In All’s Well, an explanation to the audience and plea for applause makes sense, due to the troublesome nature of the play and unresolved ending. Contrarily though, MND has a happy, comical ending that is rarely viewed as “problematic”. It is interesting then that Shakespeare would choose to end two dissimilar plays in the same manner.