Tom Snout is a character in William Shakespeare's '' A Midsummer Night's Dream''. He is a

tinker Tinker or tinkerer is an archaic term for an itinerant tinsmith who mends household utensils. Description ''Tinker'' for metal-worker is attested from the thirteenth century as ''tyckner'' or ''tinkler''. Some travelling groups and Romani p ...

, and one of the " mechanicals" of

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

, amateur players in ''

Pyramus and Thisbe Pyramus and Thisbe are a pair of ill-fated lovers whose story forms part of Ovid's ''Metamorphoses''. The story has since been retold by many authors. Pyramus and Thisbe are two lovers in the city of Babylon who occupy connected houses. Their r ...

'', a play within the play. In the

play-within-a-play A story within a story, also referred to as an embedded narrative, is a literary device in which a character within a story becomes the narrator of a second story (within the first one). Multiple layers of stories within stories are sometimes c ...

, Tom Snout plays the wall which separates Pyramus' and Thisbe's gardens. In ''

'', 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 Nick Bottom is a character in Shakespeare's ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' who provides comic relief throughout the play. A weaver by trade, he is famously known for getting his head transformed into that of a donkey by the elusive Puck. Bott ...

and

Peter Quince Peter Quince is a character in William Shakespeare's ''A Midsummer Night's Dream''. He is one of the six mechanicals of Athens who perform the play which Quince himself authored, "The Most Lamentable Comedy and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and This ...

) 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

* * Fictional artisans Fictional actors Male Shakespearean characters Characters in A Midsummer Night's Dream Literary characters introduced in 1596 Fictional Greek people Fictional mechanics {{Lit-char-stub