Archetypal Analysis of “Twelfth Night” Within every story, there are recurring qualities that can be identified, and used to connect unrelated works together. Two characters from two entirely dissimilar pieces may exhibit the same types of qualities, causing them to fall under the same archetype. This could happen in variety of ways, but nearly every story has a few of the same archetypes, and Shakespeare's “Twelfth Night” is no exception. The play contains several archetypes, including The Mentor, The Wiseman, and The Fool; these rolls are filled by the Sea Captain, Feste, and Malvolio. To start the play off, readers and viewers are introduced to a stranded Viola, who has lost her brother during their journey and presumes him dead. Alone in a foreign land, the girl is shaken and unsure what to do. Seeking council, Viola exchanges words with her ship’s captain, who explains to her, “This is Illyria, lady...to comfort you with chance...I saw your brother...hold acquaintance with the waves so long as I could see. I was bred and born not three hours’ travel from this very place...A noble Duke [governs this land]...Orsino...is [a …show more content…
His inflated ego has lead him to misinterpret Lady Olivia’s feelings for him-or rather, her lack of feelings. Although he already has the notion that he should end up with the Lady, he is fooled by Sir Toby, Maria, and Sir Andrew, believing Olivia feels the same for him. The tricksters deliberately write a letter indirectly addressed to Malvolio, divulging “Olivia’s” hidden love for the steward. Without giving much thought to the credibility of this discovered letter, Malvolio follows its enclosed instructions, unwittingly earning the real Lady Olivia’s disfavor (2.5.91-195). “This and his continuous disapproval of Sir Toby and Sir Andrew's drinking, earn him their hatred and he quickly becomes their pawn in a complex romantic ruse” (Review at Absolute
In the play, Olivia has a steward, Malvolio, unpopular with servants, mean, authoritarian, control freak. Malvolio is tricked into believing he is loved by Olivia. Malvolio behaves as if she is in love with him and he is eventually locked up for madness. After reading and reviewing the play, Malvolio’s epiphany moments stood out the most for me. Malvolio, the puritanical, was the head servant in Lady Olivia’s household. Although Malvolio is very efficient, he also very self-righteous, and frowns upon most of the things such as drinking, singing, and fun. He fantasies about marrying his mistress and living higher than his social class.
...s garters. While Malvolio is reading the letter in the gardens, Maria, Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Sir Toby Belch are all eavesdropping and laughing at how he’s falling for it. After that Malvolio goes to see Olivia, and gets locked in the jail for acting crazy.
The Tempest, is a timeless play about Prospero getting justice by having his throne back. William Shakespeare uses various dramatic elements to help readers deepen their understanding of the text in the play. The archetype critical theory can be used when reading Act 1, Scene 2 of The Tempest, for enhancing the reader’s understanding of the play. The archetype critical theory is patterns that are universal and have been applied to literature. These archetypes are present in the symbols, imagery, allusions, and dramatic irony of the scene.
In the early scenes of the play, before Malvolio believes that Olivia is in love with him, he appears to be a prudish person and uses his actions to subvert the enjoyment of others . While Toby a...
Malvolio’s dislikeable rigidity nature is shown immediately in his first entrance in the play, in his rude humiliation of Feste, “I marvel your ladyship takes delight in such a barren rascal … unless you laugh and minister occasion to him, he is gagged” (McEachern, 2007). The disapproval towards his rigid humorless attitude immediately follows with Olivia reprimanding her steward’s habit for making a big deal out of everything, “O you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, and taste with a distempered appetite” (McEachern, 2007). Malvolio further manifests his rigid and fun despising personality as he, depicted as a killjoy, spoils the revelry of Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and Feste late in the night “My masters, are you mad? Or what are you? Have you no wit, manner, nor honestly, but to gabble like tinkers at this time of night” (McEachern, 2007). It is exactly this fun despising side, depicted as Malvolio’s “stubborn and uncourteous parts” that earns him the enmity of the revelers. As he thinks, with excellences, that it is his grounds of faith that look on him love him.” Because of Malvolio’s dispositio...
In Twelfth Night, by William Shakespeare, gender identity and alternative sexualities are highlighted through the depiction of different characters and personalities. In the play, Viola disguises herself as a man thereby raising a merry-go-around of relationships that are actually based on a lie rather than actual fact. Viola attracts the attention of Olivia since she thinks that Viola is a man but even more fascinating is the fact that Orsino is attracted to Viola although he thinks that she is a man. In another twist Viola is attracted to Orsino and has fell in love with him although their love cannot exist since Orsino thinks that Viola is a man.
This shows that femininity and masculinity in itself is an identity, not just physical and biological. This makes Viola’s disguise even more difficult to overcome. Biologically she can relate to a woman’s folly and weaknesses, while being able to exert her newly found masculinity. She is not between these two worlds, they are now glued together and she is right in the middle of it. As a result, she has a heavy crown because of this, and it consists of all of the accumulated deceit. It also puts her in situations where she has to pick between her femininity while she appears to be in a man’s body. She understands that a woman’s heart can be weak and fickle when it comes to finding love, but while she is in a new identity, she finds that some characteristics between the two sexes do not add
In William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Malvolio is considered an outcast by everyone else in the play except Olivia. He doesn’t act the same way that any of the other characters act, and he seems to be a real stickler for the rules, which upsets certain characters more than others. But it is this strict coherence to the rules that allows Malvolio to have such a high position in Olivia’s household. While Malvolio may be considered an outcast to most of the characters in the play, Olivia shows concern for Malvolio and his well-being.
In Shakespeare’s comedy Twelfth Night the great bard uses humor and mistaken identity not only to poke fun at romantic stories of “perfect love” and the foolish behavior of the aristocrats, but also to reveal man’s anxieties surrounding courtship, gender performance, and love as a whole. The portion of the play I have chosen to analyze are lines 188-256 in Act 5 scene one when Sebastian enters the stage and discovers Viola alive. The siblings give information about themselves to determine each other’s identity before Viola finally reveals herself to be female, allowing the farce to come to an end and the characters to return to their normal roles. Viola then declares her love for Orsino and he accepts her affections. While this scene is certainly
Viola is a very pragmatic, shrewd woman. She does not deceive her self in the way Orsino does. After the Captain tells her that her brother may be alive, she rewards him with gold, and then goes on to question the Captain about the land she is in. She realises that she must do something to survive, and instead of morning about the death of her brother, she takes practical steps.
When Maria forges a love letter in Olivia’s hand Malvolio is only too happy to reactive it. He follows its directions and makes a fool of himself while trying to reach his ambitions for an improvement in social status. When Olivia rejects him he understands that he is not what he thinks he is. He is a servant and that is where he belongs. He finds his identity and though he is possibly unsatisfied he is accepting, and though he is upset with the people who prank him he has found himself and is now in his mind even higher above them.
In William Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” a unnatural love triangle unfolds as the leading heroine, Viola, disguises herself as a male to obscure her social class in society in order to find herself without being bound by her gender. While many of Shakespeare’s works elaborate on the traditional and religious understanding of marriage during the 1600s, “Twelfth Night” obscures these traditional motifs by creating a humanistic portrayal of love that blurs not only social class but gender as well. The determinism throughout the play demonstrates how nature imposes limitations on the characters through cause and affect. For the characters
Twelfth Night or What You Will is one of Shakespeare’s most famous comedies. It has been performed hundreds of times and adapted into a number of modern films. The main plot of the play follows Viola, a girl who is rescued from a shipwreck and enters into the service of the Duke Orsino disguised as a man. Rising quickly in his estimation, Viola begins delivering messages of love on his behalf to Olivia, a noble woman who has no interest in Orsino’s advances. Over the course of the play Olivia falls in love with the disguised Viola, Viola falls in love with Orsino, and Viola’s twin brother Sebastian, who supposedly died in the shipwreck, returns. Following Sebastian’s return the twins are mistaken for each other, leading to both misunderstanding and marriage in the final scenes of the play. Alongside the main plot of Twelfth Night is an almost equally prominent subplot involving Malvolio, a servant of Olivia, who falls in love with her and who falls prey to a prank planned by the other members of the household who despise his abhorrence of fun. In the article “The Design of Twelfth Night” by L.G. Salingar, Salingar examines the plot and structure of the play and addresses the significance of the subplot. The purpose of this essay is to examine both evidence from the play and articles from other authors, with a focus on Salingar, who have written on the subject in order to determine the purpose of the subplot. In his article, Salingar comes to the conclusion that the purpose of the subplot is to provide a comic mirror of the main plot while amplifying the main themes of delusion, misrule and festivity. Salingar presents a solid argument, however he has neglected another lesser but significant element of the sub-plot which illustrate...
In Shakespeare 's well known play Twelfth Night, which takes place somewhere in Illyria, Lady Olivia is an independent, powerful, wealthy but single woman; the sudden deaths of her father and brother has left her in sadness alone in a big castle to herself. She has her relative Sir Toby Belch who was still around and visited her. Orsino, a duke, has a huge crush on her and is trying to have her to himself. Meanwhile, the jealous steward Malvolio who also has a crush on Lady Olivia, is a guy who is full of himself and acts like he 's king, he forgets where his place is sometimes. In Olivia 's house there is the weak and foolish Sir Andrew who has a crush on Olivia and is wishing one day he would get a chance with her. are also these twins,Viola and Sebastian. They have been shipwrecked and isolated from each other, so Viola thinks Sebastian is dead, and Sebastian thinks viola is dead. Later Viola decides to disguise herself as a messenger and call herself Cesario so she can work for Orsino. Since Viola was so pretty and the way she used her words were great, she won Orsino’s trust. Orsino tells Cesario
Shakespeare is a famous writer of many plays, such as Twelfth Night. Twelfth Night is a romantic comedy that takes place in Illyria and incorporates several songs throughout the play. Shakespeare normally assigns the singing roles to characters of lower class and minor personalities, such as servants, clowns, rogues and fools. Major characters never usually sing unless they are in disguise or in distracted mental states. In Twelfth Night, the Fool, who is also known as Feste, is in charge of all the songs and he uses music to effectively portray the truth and reality beneath all the acting in the play.