How Does Malvolio A Quandary To End?

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In respect to Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night, the question of how far did Maria’s joke on Malvolio go through its course, and eventual end, is an interesting quandary to answer. There are a few questions to ponder first: Has Malvolio brought this humiliation on himself? Is this “joke” a way to bring Malvolio to a humiliating end? What is Maria’s true motivation in her implantation of her plan? What was Maria’s desired end? The answer to each of these questions’ answers can lead to a separate conclusion to the overall question. Looking to the character of Malvolio, and his overlaying personality, Shakespeare presents a censorious individual ‘so crammed that he things, with excellencies--/ that it is grounds of fath that all that look on him love him’ (2.3.138-139), who presents disdain to all that goes against his stern view of how the world should be, “… Have/ you no wit, manners, nor honesty but to gabble like tinkers/ …Do ye make an alehouse of my lady’s/ house” (2.3.81-82, 83, 84). Here lies a man who “… is a man without friends,” as Stephen Greenblatt states in his essay “Hamlet”. Though he is preforming his lady’s bidding, it is how he approaches the implementation that brings the ill will of others. As Stephen Evans states in “Study Guide for Twelfth Night,” Moalvolio “has authority over much of her household” (Evans, 6). Malvolio is in a position of in between, he is not in the elite, yet he holds power. “He …show more content…

While Malvolio is an absurd and flawed individual, attempting to take away his sanity instead of just tweaking his nose is a step too far. There is no justice for Malvolio in the end, Maria is rewarded, Olivia is patronizing, “Alas, poor fool, how have they baffled/ thee” (5.1.57), his aspirations are dashed, and a mirror of his own foolishness has been placed in front of him. The wrongs to him seems more than enough justification for anyone’s

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