Free Essays - Viola and Orsino in Twelfth Night Twelfth Night essays

512 Words2 Pages

Viola and Orsino in Twelfth Night In William Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" there are several relationships that develop throughout the play. Among the many characters whose interaction and misunderstanding become the core of the plot, Viola and Orsino have the most significant relationship. The way they interact with one another causes the complex conflict of the play, and as the conflict comes to be more complex the two characters turn from strangers to friends and then to lovers. In the first Act Viola and Orsino's interaction is on the level of two complete strangers. From the beginning Viola is not honest with Orsino because she disguises herself as a male page named Cesario in order to get close to him. Orsino trusts Viola very quickly and sends Cesario to declare his love for Olivia, the object of his affection. This quick bond and trust for Cesario is the first example of their soon to develop relationship. The mere fact that Orsino trusts Cesario with his message of love is a transition from a stranger to a friend. In act two the complexity of the relationship is taken to an all new level. Olivia falls in love with the page Cesario, meaning Viola has landed herself in a tight spot between Orsino and Olivia. The newly developed love triangle is now apart of the relationship between Orsino and Viola despite the fact that Orsino knows nothing but the façade Viola has conveniently blinded him with. In scene four of act two there is a very important interaction between Viola and Orsino. She tells him a love story about Cesario's sister the stories purpose however is to pull his attention from Olivia. Viola takes a step in her own interest of love by asking him if he could love another woman if they loved him as much as he loves Olivia. In lines 98-102 of act two scene four there is an example of her trying to persuade him that there are other women about. "Sooth, but you must. Say that some lady as perhaps there is, hath for you as great a pang of heart as you have for Olivia. You can not love her; you tell her so. Must she not then be answered?" Orsino brushes the comment off and says that there is no stronger love than he has for Olivia, but the conversation in itself is a big step in their development into friends from complete strangers. The statement also leaves the audience a back door to a possible aspiring love relationship. In the fifth and final act the love between Orsino and Viola is now possible because viola reveals that she is in fact a woman and not the male page Cesario.

Show More
Related

  • The Function of Different Settings in A Doll's House and Twelfth Night

    603 Words  | 2 Pages

    When Viola comes to the sea-coast of Illyria, she is also influenced by its special atmosphere. Seeking for adventures, she disguises herself as a young man and falls in love with Orsino. Her actions are not applicable for a woman of the Elizabethan period, who couldn't travel alone, but only with a chaperon.

    Read More

  • Love and Deceit in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night

    1723 Words  | 4 Pages

    Love, quite an indescribable word, has such an impact upon people as to cause deceit and overall confusion in every relationship. In Will Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night or What You Will, Shakespeare attempts to have a great balance of both cruelty and joy while also containing comical qualities to this romantic play. Throughout Twelfth Night or What You Will, Shakespeare uses puns with characters such as Viola to cross-dress and change their identity. "She attires herself in the disguise of a page, as the best protection against uncivil comments, till she can gain some tidings of her brother" (O'Connor) while Viola is disguising herself as a boy, she falls in love with her employer, Duke Orsino. Viola cannot express her feelings for Orsino because Orsino thinks that Viola is a man.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Unrequited Love In Twelfth Night

    724 Words  | 2 Pages

    Orsino never loses love for Olivia, but rather the madness subsides and the feelings and emotion transfer to another. In this case Orsino’s love transfers to Viola. Orsino says to Viola, “Boy, thou hast said to me thousand times thou never shouldst love woman like to me” which signals to the audience that Orsino’s epiphany masks the transfer of love from Olivia to Viola (V.i.279-280). This realisation comes after appreciating the good work that “Cesario” does for him. He also now understands the subtle hints that Viola drops on him from time to time. Orsino continues, “Give me thy hand, and let me see thee in thy woman’s weeds” which gives the audience an understanding of Orsino’s values (V.i.285-286). He has always thought that Viola had feminine features, but now he has the ability to put together the complete beauty of Viola through the transfer of love from Olivia to

    Read More

  • Essay On Gender Role Reversal In Twelfth Night

    1007 Words  | 3 Pages

    She says this to the captain: "Conceal me what I am, and be my aid/ as haply shall become/The form of my intent. I 'll serve this duke/ Thou shalt present me as an eunuch to him" (1.2.55-58) Viola behaves in a more masculine manner since she is aggressive and assertive as opposed to passive and indecisive; she thinks of the plan to disguise herself and boldly decides to carry it out without having any doubts or reservations. A Renaissance woman would typically be less bold and assertive in a situation like this; she would most likely play the role of a damsel in distress. Throughout the majority of the play, Viola behaves in this manner, demonstrating her tendency toward a more masculine role. However, toward the end of the play, Viola 's masculine tendencies begin to wear off, and her feminine attributes resurface. When Duke Orsino confronts Olivia about her rejection of his love, he

    Read More

  • The Central Theme Of Love In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

    1227 Words  | 3 Pages

    Like many of Shakespeare’s comedies, Twelfth Night revolves around the central theme of love by focusing on the interactions between characters. Two characters, Orsino and Olivia, are self-indulgent people too busy living in the melodrama of their emotions to relate to those around them. They become inconsiderate of the feelings of others. Orsino is so lovesick that he can think of nothing but Olivia while Olivia is so fixed upon grieving for her brother that nothing else matters to her. It is only when Viola, as Cesario, becomes part of their lives that they change.

    Read More

  • Twelfth Night - There is More Than One Way to Love!

    1359 Words  | 3 Pages

    It is now clear that Shakespeare shows how there is more than one way to love, either loving a person or loving love itself in his play, Twelfth Night. Olivia burdens Cesario with information that she does not want to let him go because then she will not be able to look at him to feast her eyes. Orsino is rather proud that he knows how to love and enjoys sharing this piece of information to all of the people around him in the form of his moaning. Viola, differently, is having a hard time keeping in her love for Orsino and has to fight against her own disguise. All in all, Olivia, Orsino and Viola each have similarities and differences in the types of love they express. The characters are all having some extent of a hard time with their love (a conflict they overcome,) but they express their love in diverse ways to those around them.

    Read More

  • Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

    1056 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Viola’s manner and dress resemble those of a male although she is a female” (Huston, 498). Viola’s disguise as Cesario causes characters such as Orsino to believe that she is someone that she truthfully is not. When Orsino first meets Cesario he admits that “he” has many female characteristics that would imply that her disguise really is not as good as she may have thought it was. When they are together at the Duke’s house he states “Diana’s lip/ is not more smooth and rubious, thy small pipe/ is as the maiden’s organ, shrill sound/ and all is semblative a woman’s part” (1.4.34-37). Through this quote, Orsino explains that Cesario looks very much like a woman. He explains that Cesario has many physical female characteristics. This quote hints at the fact that Cesario is not truly who he claims in the play. To begin, Viola’s disguise tricks Orsino into telling her all of his secrets. When explaining how close they have become in such a short period of ...

    Read More

  • Twelfth Night Love Analysis

    1291 Words  | 3 Pages

    Recently, I’ve been reading an intriguing play, Twelfth Night, which was written by William Shakespeare. What interests me most is the fact that there are a lot of love interests and people are always influenced facing different love situations. Duke Orsino is greatly attracted to a gentlewoman called Olivia. However, despite his attempts to court her, she rejects his approaches as she claims to be in a period of mourning for her dead brother which has been going on for seven years. Olivia forms a tight friendship with Viola, a woman who acts as a messenger for the Duke, and ends up falling in love with her. Viola, on the other hand, is totally awed by Orsino. The fact that Olivia is in love with Viola, who is in love with

    Read More

  • The True Love Between Viola and Orsino, as Compared to Other Relationships in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

    409 Words  | 1 Pages

    Twelfth Night consists of a large number of love triangles, however many characters are too indulged in love that they are blind to the untrue, and the weakness of their relationship, they are deceived by themselves and many people around them ( ex. Malvolio is tricked by Sir Andrew, Feste ,Sir Toby and Maria),but there are certain incidents where the love is true and two characters feel very strongly about one another. In the play, Viola and Orsino have the most significant relationship. The way they interact with each other causes the complexity on which the play is all about, their relationship turns from strangers to friends then lovers .In the First Act Viola is not honest with Orsino because she disguises herself as a male servant named Cesario in order to get closer to the duke. Orsino. Orsino quickly trusts Cesario and sends him to Olivia to declare Orsinos Love for her, the girl he most dearly loves. This quick bond is the fast example of their relationship. At the beginning of the play, Viola thinks her brother (Sebastian) is dead (after they’re deadly boat crash, where they get separated) when actually he is alive and thinks she is dead, Viola always seems to have a part missing from her which shows her bond with Sebastian is strong, and a part of her but in a brotherly/sisterly way rather than a proper relationship like viola and orsino, At the end of the play they meet and both fall in love , Viola with Orsino and Sebastian with Olivia.

    Read More

  • Cause Suffrage And Identity In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

    1070 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the play the reader knows that the hidden character viola who plays Orsino causes a lot of mischief and suffrage in the play. Not only to others but to herself. One of the first examples the reader can see this suffrage is in Olivia. Olivia in the story ends up in love with Cesario who we all know is actually Olivia.

    Read More

  • What Is Olivia's Transformation In Twelfth Night

    766 Words  | 2 Pages

    When their ship washed up on the shore of Illyria after a storm, Viola, a young woman who arrived with a group of sailors, decides to take her own route in the world. As soon as she arrived she wanted to find a job, “Oh, that I served that lady / And might not be delivered to the world, / Till I had made mine own occasion mellow, / What my estate is” (Viola 1.2.38-41). She later disguises herself as a young man named “Cesario,” and becomes a page for Duke Orsino. The figurative language that Shakespeare uses within Twelfth Night creates a sympathetic mood for the readers as many of the characters are dejected including Viola who believes she has lost her brother at sea. Her determination immediately begins after she was given the hope that her brother might have survived the wreckage. “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” (Viola 1.2.49-52), Viola pleads the sailor to help her on her transformation into the young man, Cesario, by offering him

    Read More

  • The Stereotypes Of Love In Shakespeare's The Twelfth Night

    1618 Words  | 4 Pages

    (The Twelfth Night 1.1.1-3). Unlike many of Shakespeare’s lovesick characters, Orsino begins speaking about love as a concept, rather than the object of his love. For example, when the reader first meets Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, he laments his unrequited feelings for Rosalind. Instead, Shakespeare chooses for Orsino to focus on loving the feeling of being in love. However, love needs a face to feel validated, and “Orsino requires an external stimulant.

    Read More

  • The Theme Of Love In Twelfth Night

    826 Words  | 2 Pages

    Ultimately, Orsino’s love is misguided in both William Shakespeare and Kenneth Branagh’s interpretation of Twelfth Night. At one point, Orsino is depressed over his unreciprocated love for Olivia and in the next instant he claims to love Viola. He likes the idea of being in love with someone, whilst being fixated on one person to the next. Love needs to be pure and genuine intention, whereas Orsino needs to understand the passion and true emotion of love. Although Orsino and Viola ended together, their love may not be true love with passion. Orsino may have trouble expresses his inner emotions for Viola since he hasn’t fully developed them for Viola. All in all, Orsino’s feelings throughout the play are misdirected but at the end of the day, he received the love he was searching for.

    Read More

  • Disguises and Mistaken Identity in Twelfth Night

    1368 Words  | 3 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Love Triangle in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

    1041 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Twelfth Night, Shakespeare was able to embody the perfect love triangle between Olivia, Orsino, and Viola/Cesario. This particular passage was Olivia’s speech upon the first encounter with Viola, or as Olivia knew her, Cesario. Cesario had actually come to the countess to bring message of Orsino’s love for her, but upon encountering Cesario, Olivia fell instantly in love herself thus finishing the final corner of this love triangle. I think the main point that should be taken into account when reading Olivia’s passage is the obvious presence of guilt and love, two very opposing emotions, which she appears to be having an internal conflict with.

    Read More

More about Free Essays - Viola and Orsino in Twelfth Night Twelfth Night essays

Open Document