Most often when watching how someone acts in certain situations or towards other people, an observation can be made about how they may have changed their behaviour depending on the circumstances. If a person is out with their friends, being interviewed for a job, or having dinner with their family, it is unlikely that they had presented themselves the same way in all the situations. The comedy, Twelfth Night or What You Will, by William Shakespeare, tells a story of deception as it follows the protagonist, Viola, who disguises as a man who goes by the name Cesario. The theme of disguise and deception is seen throughout the story in many forms by characters such as Maria, Feste, Sir Toby, as well as others. In William Shakespeare’s play, Twelfth …show more content…
The first use of disguise in the play is Viola’s disguise as a man named Cesario. Viola acquires this disguise by paying off her ship’s captain after becoming shipwrecked in Illyria; she says, “. . . For such disguise as haply shall become / The form of my intent. I’ll serve this Duke; / thou shalt present me as an eunuch to him” (Shakespeare 1.2.54–56). Viola decides to become Cesario for protection; since she is a woman who is all alone in an unfamiliar place with no money. This disguise is necessary to creating the appearance of being male in order to trick Duke Orsino into hiring her and providing her a job that offers her security until she can establish herself as Viola. Maria, Olivia’s assistant, also uses a disguise in the play but not in the same way that Viola had. Maria writes a letter and disguises as Olivia in order to trick Malvolio, another one of Olivia’s servants, into thinking that Olivia is in love with him as a joke. She is able to manipulate Malvolio by using Olivia’s seal on the letter, speaking as Olivia would, and by using her writing which is nearly identical to Olivia’s. By using this disguise in the letter, Maria fools Malvolio into doing embarrassing things by telling him for example, “Remember who commended thy yellow stockings, and wished to see thee ever cross-gartered” (2.5.143–144). Additionally, …show more content…
Since I was in the French-immersion program, my classmates were always the same people every year; so everyone in the class had pressure to get along and fit in the best they could or else the others would ostracize them. The class was split into two main groups; the boys, and the girls. To fit into these groups, people would often say that they all liked the same activities, all found the same things funny, and all got along and were great friends; which was simply not true. I was never part of these groups because I did not have their common interests and did not want to pretend to be interested in the same things that they were. However, I had friends who were in these groups, and outside of school, they would often say that they did not actually like the activities that the rest of the group liked or they did not like someone in the group even though they appeared to be friends with them. It was also common to overhear people talking badly about their friends when they were not in the room while in class. The main reason people used disguises in my school was to fit in with the others; if they did not fit in, their grades were often impacted because the school did all the work in groups. This meant that for projects if someone could not find a group, they would often be put with people that either did not like
when he gets bored of it then he tells him to stop, just like that.
William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night Twelfth Night is one of Shakespeare's most famous comedies, involving complex plots, which result in hilarious outcomes. The main plot of Twelfth Night tells of Count Orsino's efforts to woo the Lady Olivia. who does not return his affection. Instead, Olivia is smitten with her. Orsino's servant Cesario, unaware of his true identity.
In Act 3, Scene 1 Olivia tries to court Cesario, disguised Viola, by trying to woo him into falling in love with Olivia. The goal was never reached and inevitably her attempts failed due to conditions that only Olivia knew about it. Once the reading comes across this text, it’s clear that Shakespeare is trying to prove he is breaking the traditional and accepted norms by society by having Cesario, also known as Viola, being what Oliva desires most. Shakespeare appears to use the words and actions a suitor or someone of interest would use or perform for his beloved or desired, but he ensures that the receiving character was in fact, Cesario. Based on cliché theories, Viola should have fallen in love with Olivia so does her character not do so? The intention was not in fact to bend gender roles but to show Shakespeare’s real opinion on how foolish it is for women to try to woo a man into loving her, thus contradicting the idea of him wanting to change the interpretation of his take on gender conformity. This understanding can go on to say that Shakespeare wanted to have a comedic moment that involved a man dressed as a woman, Olivia, tries to get the attention of a woman dressed as a man, also known as Cesario(Lindheim). This unquestionably mocked and made fun of gender roles and stereotypes, making this scene a great example to address.
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.
Function of Disguise in Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is a play based around disguise in the form of deception and becoming someone different. In Twelfth Night, disguise takes many different shapes from physical disguise to mental disguise. Disguise is one of the main topics of the play and helps to create the plot. It brings in confusion and comedy as well as the darker and sadder side of the play which is disguised as fun and happiness. Disguise is evident from the very beginning of the play.
As in most comedies, William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night extensively. uses disguises, masks and mistaken identities to add to the comical nature of. the play. Viola's disguise as Orsino's page, Cesario, becomes crucial to the action in the play. Without this important element, the action in the play would slow down dramatically, making the story much less intriguing.
The play opens with Orsino, the Duke of Illyria, expressing his deep love for the Countess Olivia. Meanwhile, the shipwrecked Viola disguises herself as a man and endeavors to enter the Duke’s service. Although she has rejected his suit, the Duke then employs Viola, who takes the name of Cesario, to woo Olivia for him. As the play continues, Cesario falls in love with the Duke, and Olivia falls in love with Cesario, who is really Viola disguised. Maria, Olivia’s servant woman, desires to seek revenge on Malvolio, Olivia’s steward. “To the delight of Sir Toby, Olivia’s uncle, and his friend Sir Andrew, Maria comes up with a plot to drop love letters supposedly written by Olivia in Malvolio’s path. When she does, they observe him, along with Fabian, another servant, as Malvolio falls for the bait. Believing that Olivia loves him, he makes a fool of himself” (Napierkowski 3).
It is also one of the themes in Twelfth Night that the play revolves around as Shakespeare makes it out to be by presenting the character of ‘Caesario’. In Twelfth Night, Shakespeare presents the obvious deception of the play that is Viola. Viola’s role in the play is purely based on the ideas of disguise and deception. She initially deceives everyone by disguising herself as a man, ‘Cesario’, in order to serve Orsino. We can see this from the quote, “For such disguise as haply shall become: The form of my intent”.
After Olivia has her very first conversation with Cesario (Viola), where he tries to woo her for Duke Orsino, she immediately falls in love with him. After Cesario leaves her palace, Olivia says to herself ‘Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions and spirit do give thee fivefold blazon. Not too fast; soft, soft. Unless the master were the man. How now? Even so quickly may one catch the plague?’ Here Olivia states that Cesario’s external features are what attract her to him. Her metaphor contains a s...
Viola's male masquerade also calls attention to the more general theme of masking. As Cesario, Viola suggests that things are not always as they seem, that identities are protean, that self-deception rivals self-knowledge and that only Time can untie complicated "knots." Coppelia Kahn points out that the cross-dressing in Twelfth...
In Twelfth Night, the character Viola, who cross-dresses as a man named Cesario, is used to show how true love is capable of breaking gender barriers. Viola is an amiable character who has no severe faults. The audience can clearly detect that Viola's love is the purest because unlike Orsino and Olivia, her character's love is not narcissistic and does not jump from one person to the next. In other words, her actions are motivated by deep and abiding passion rather than whimsical choices. Viola's main problem, however, throughout the play is one of identity. Because of her costume, she must be both herself and Cesario. Thi...
Viola/Ceasario's disguise hides most of her past: the shipwreck, her lost brother, and the fact that she is a woman. Her identity now as a man, is to move on in life and get a job. Her love for Orsino is hidden with her original identity, as though she works for him as his servant. She is a very strong character in the play. "I prithee (and I’ll pay thee bounteously)/ Conceal me what I am, and be my aid/ For such disguise as haply shall become/ The form of my intent. I’ll serve this duke." (1.2.52-55). After the shipwreck and the loss of her brother, Viola decides to move on using a disguise as her shield. Viola’s secret love for Orsino is different than the way Olivia loves Ceasario. Olivia is in lo...
In Shakespeare’s play, Twelfth Night or What you Will, the characters are involved in a plot complete with trickery, disguise, and love. Each character is defined not by his or her gender or true identity, but by the role they are forced to take because of the complicated situation that arises. Unlike their gender, the speech the characters give an insight to their true personalities. In the Twelfth Night, the character Duke Orsino uses flowery and over-dramatic language, long poetic sentence structure, and melodramatic metaphors to display his overemotional romantic nature despite the different emotions in his various speeches.
Throughout Twelfth Night, disguise and mistaken identity works as a catalyst for confusion and disorder which consistently contributes towards the dramatic comic genre of the play. Many characters in Twelfth Night assume disguises, beginning with Viola, who disguises herself as a man in order to serve Orsino, the Duke. By dressing his protagonist in male garments, Shakespeare creates ongoing sexual confusion with characters, which include Olivia, Viola and Orsino, who create a ‘love triangle’ between them. Implicitly, there is homoerotic subtext here: Olivia is in love with a woman, despite believing her to be a man, and Orsino often comments on Cesario’s beauty, which implies that he is attracted to Viola even before her male disguise is removed. However, even subsequent to the revealing of Viola’s true identity, Orsino’s declares his love to Viola implying that he enjoys lengthening the pretence of Vio...
Love however, is the source of much confusion and complication in another of Shakespeare’s comedies, Twelfth Night. Men and women were seen as very different from each other at the time the play was written, they were therefore also treated in very different ways. Because of this Viola conceals her identity and adopts the role of a man, in order to better her safety whilst being alone on the island, and to get a job at Count Orsino’s court. In the play Shakespeare uses the gender confusion he has created from obscuring characters identities to explore the limits of female power and control within courtship, and their dominance within society. Violas frustration surrounding her inability to express her feelings to the Count because she is a woman is an example of the limiting rules of courtship which were upheld at the time. (Aside) ‘yet, a barful strife! Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife.’ Here she is already expressing her anxiety and emotion at being a woman, and having to keep her emotions hidden from those around her. She longs to be able to express her love as a man could, and in her disguise as Cesario she finds an opportunity to vent her feelings for the Count, but concealed as his words and towards Olivia. Viola is unaware of how her words may sound to Olivia because she is aware of their gender boundaries however Olivia isn’t and soon falls for Cesario. Because Olivia is a Lady and head of the household, and especially how she lacks a father figure, she has a lot more freedom in courtship. Duisinberre comments on this saying, ‘...Viola and Beatrice are women set free from their fathers, and their voice is that of the adult world.’ This is seen when Olivia immediately takes the dominant role in her and Cesarios relat...