Feeling Sympathy for Malvolio

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Feeling Sympathy for Malvolio Malvolio plays the role of Olivia’s self admiring butler. He takes advantage of his position in the house to abuse of those lower ranked in the house than him. These people are Sir Toby, Maria and Fabian, (Sir Andrew doesn’t work in the house). These people have got fed up of this and decide to get their own back throughout the play. The dispute is that may be they went too far. Malvolio is smart in appearance and well dressed. Apart from this, Malvolio is pompous, vane, arrogant and has a lack of forgiveness. Malvolio’s first entrance is in 1.5 l.2 and his first line of speech is in 67. If acted and spoken well it gives you a really strong idea of what Malvolio is like. Shakespeare makes you, straight away, make a stereo-type of Malvolio. The impression I got after his first line: ‘Yes, and shall do, till the pangs of death shake him;’ Was that he disliked Feste and that he was annoyed that Feste was getting attention from Olivia because Malvolio wanted Olivia all to himself because he is selfish. Then, 6 lines after he says: ‘I marvel your ladyship takes delight in such a barren rascal.’ 1.5 l.67 This line really shows that he thinks of Feste as a ‘barren rascal’ and that he is really arrogant the way he looks down on Feste. He also tries to get Olivia away from Feste when he says the line, and he is basically saying ‘I am amazed that you like being with such a worthless joker.’ As Malvolio loves Olivia, he wants her all to him self. This is a problem for Cesario because Malvolio sees him as competition because he is young and handsome. He shows this in 1.5 l.115, when he d... ... middle of paper ... ... Feste or Maria. She does not so Malvolio has a tantrum and shouts in 5.1 l.355 ‘I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you.’ I think this is typical of Malvolio but I do sympathise with him because everyone is happy but Malvolio is alone and hurt. I think he does deserve to get his revenge and there should be a sequel where Malvolio comes back and gets his own back. In the end I think Malvolio is mean at times but at others he is just doing his job. Also, during the play, he does not do enough things wrong to Sir Toby to be put in a dark room and bound up. I felt no sympathy at all for Malvolio at the box tree scene but soon after that stage in the play my sympathy rose enormously for him, to such an extent that I wanted him to get a big bucket of sludge full of all the grief he endured and pour it over Sir Toby.

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