Tom Snout

Tom Snout is a character in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. He is a tinker, and one of the "mechanicals" of Athens, amateur players in Pyramus and Thisbe, a play within the play.

In the play-within-a-play, Tom Snout plays the wall which separates Pyramus' and Thisbe's gardens. In Pyramus and Thisbe, the two lovers whisper to each other through Snout's fingers (representing a gap in the wall). Snout has eight lines under the name of Tom Snout, and two lines as The Wall. He is the Wall for Act V-Scene 1.

Tom Snout was originally set to play Pyramus's father, but the need for a wall was greater, so he discharged The Wall. Snout is often portrayed as a reluctant actor and very frightened, but the other mechanicals (except Nick Bottom and Peter Quince) are usually much more frightened than Tom Snout).

Snout's name, like that of the other mechanicals, is a metonym and derives from his craft: "Snout" means a nozzle or a spout, a feature of the kettles a tinker often mends.

References

Sources

1. Mechanical (character)
2. A Midsummer Night's Dream
3. Snout (disambiguation)
4. Conrad Ricamora
5. Patrick Stewart on stage and screen
6. Xavier Samuel
7. List of Shakespearean characters (L–Z)
8. Francis Flute
9. Bill Irwin
10. A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999 film)
11. Bernard Cribbins
12. Kenneth Welsh
13. Max Bennett (actor)
14. Robert Arden
15. A Midsummer Night's Rave
16. Fritz Rasp
17. Midsummer Mechanicals
18. List of fictional actors
19. Brown Snout
20. Michael Blakemore