The Drive of Love
In Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare, love, fancy, and wonder drives the characters world to change. If the presence of love, fancy, or wonder wasn 't there, no one would do anything. There would never be the resolution in Act 5, Scene 1. In comedy, the play starts in chaos and then progressively changes into a resolution, humorously coming to the end result. The moment of resolution is when the disguise of Viola/Cesario is lifted. When Viola’s true identity is shown, everything suddenly makes sense to the other characters. This introduces an understanding to all the misunderstood events leading up to this resolution, making this ironic story come to a close. In Twelfth Night, irony, the factors that drive Illyria,
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With this in mind, he still references to her as a boy within the verse. His hesitation to call Viola a female suggests there was an unspoken tension that would be awkward to break. Seemingly, different perspectives could suggest that Orsino had an attraction to the male gender. Although that was not allowed at the time Shakespeare was writing this, it seemed that Orsino refused to view Viola as a female. Although the love that he feels for her is now allowed to come out without it being forbidden by societal norms. According to Phyllis Rackin,“the term gender roles indicates there is an important tense in which gender is a kind of act for all women, not only for actresses and not only for boys pretending to be a women”(29). Furthermore, in line 280, Orsino ironically states that “thou never shouldst love woman like to me”. Orsino fancied Olivia with this high standard for so long, as if she was held high on a pedestal that he wanted to lower his standards a bit when loving Viola. While Orsino is speaking in verse, he starts talking about how what he sees now seems to be true by stating, “If this be so, as yet the glass seems true”, by basically saying his perspective is much clearer like wiping dirty glasses clean so that you can see clearly. Now in the days that Shakespeare was writing his plays, the actors who played out the …show more content…
One example of this is the idea of loving only people within your hierarchical level. They wanted to make sure that they were falling for someone who was in their social class because that is what the social norm was in this time. Orsino justifies that Viola is appearing to be on the same level of nobility as he is by stating in (5.1.276), “right noble is his blood”. Knowing this, it puts Orsino at ease because he would never want to break the social norms. An example of disturbance of social norms within Twelfth Night would be when Malvolio believes that Olivia has sent him this letter stating that she would like to be with him. In regards to Malvolio and Olivia, Olivia is in a higher social status than Malvolio as she is nobility and he is the equivalent to a butler. If they were to be together, it would be against the social norms of that
There have been many authors and playwrights in the world, but none of them have had as much influence as William Shakespeare. When people look at Shakespeare’s body of work, ranging from romantic sonnets to comedies and tragedies; and his overarching influence over writing nowadays, it is clear that his legacy has withstood the test of time. One of his most popular works is Twelfth Night, which tells a tale of love and mistaken identity. Twelfth Night is one of Shakespeares comedies about people who all seem to love the wrong person. A young noblewoman named Viola ends up on the shores of Illyria. Believing her brother to be dead, she is forced to dress up as a man and enter the court of Orsino, the duke of Illyria, as a eunuch named Cesario. As she spends more time waiting on Orsino, she finds herself falling in love with him but is unable to express her feelings because Orsino is in love with Olivia. At the end, hilarity ensures. As all of this occurs, Olivia’s cousin, Toby, his friend Sir Andrew, and the maid Maria, play a prank on the uptight Malvolio, who is Olivia’s steward and appears to only be around to put an end to the revelries of Toby and Andrew. Maria forges a letter and leaves it for Malvolio to find. Malvolio is a character with many dimensions, and as the play progresses, his true colors are revealed. In Twelfth Night, Shakespeare uses the unfortunate consequences of Malvolio’s actions to show the folly consequences of ambition.
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.
EXPOSITION: Orsino expresses his love for Olivia: While Olivia is mourning for her dead brother; Orsino falls in love with her. He is trying to get her to marry him but she refuses. Since she mourns for the loss of her brother for seven years, Olivia will not see anybody who seeks a relationship with her.
We see this exaggerated one-sided love play out in many forms throughout the play. Viola, for example, says in this line, “I’ll do my best To woo your lady: Aside. Yet a barful strife! Whoe 'er I woo, myself would be his wife.” (1.4.44-46) This tells us that Viola, having just met Orsino a few days ago, has a desire to be wed to Orsino. This kind of desire that Viola has for Orsino can only be conjured up from a fairytale due to the sheer passion and irrationality of falling in love with an acquaintance. Shakespeare also uses diction in deceptive forms. This is evident when Orsino uses the word “violets” (1.1.6) in his speech and to display the deception that is played out in the play. The word “violets” comes from the comes from the latin word viola. Some readers would be deceived, as many might not even notice the hint that Orsino gives in his own speech. We know this deception to be true in the form of Viola when she disguises herself as a eunuch to Orsino in his own courts as evidence in this line, “For such disguise as haply shall become The form of my intent. I 'll serve this duke: Thou shall present me as an eunuch to him”
In Twelfth Night the relationships are anything but romantic. Shakespeare writes from the male point of view which implies an un-easy split between love and physical charm. In Twelfth night the romance is falsely produced by selfish desire. Duke Orsino and Viola stand out from the other relationships. By questioning the relationships between the other couples, Shakespeare highlights the true love between Viola and Orsino and the fake relationship of Malvolio and Olivia which is truly based on Malvolio’s desire of a higher status , despite his status and his personality , Malvolio tries to impress Olivia by dressing up in ridiculous clothes , which does far from his aim , and repulses Olivia.
After Duke Orsino asks Cesario (disguised Viola) to make Olivia love him, although she had stated that she would not marry for seven years due to her sadness from her brother’s death, Cesario tells him “I’ll do my best to woo your lady.” Then Viola tells the audience “(Aside) yet, a barful strife—Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife,” meaning that she has to convince another woman to love the man she loves. The exchange of words in this scene exemplifies dramatic irony since the reader now knows that a love road that connects Duke Orsino, Viola, and Olivia has formed while Orsino is clueless about the situation. Situational irony can also be withdrawn from this conversation because it is shocking that Viola is in love with Orsino. Viola’s sudden love for Orsino illustrates a universal truth about life that sometimes people fall in love too quickly without thinking far ahead.
Unlike the other characters in Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night", Viola's feelings of love are genuine. She is not mistaken about Orsino's true nature and loves him for who he really is, while the other characters in the play seem to be in love with an illusion. Viola's love for Orsino does not alter during the play, nor is it transferred to another person.
...h the idea of being in love and enjoys making a spectacle of himself. His attraction to the ostensibly male Cesario injects sexual ambiguity into his character, and reveals that genuine love does exist within his character because he allows himself for that brief scene to be exposed and vulnerable. Olivia, like Orsino likes to wallow I her own misery, and also acts absurdly by falling for Cesario within a matter of a few moments of dialogue. Olivia seems to have no difficulty transporting her affections from one love interest to the next, however, suggesting that her romantic feelings, like most emotions in the play, are not profound. In all, Shakespeare used Twelfth Night to reveal that love can be found in unlikely places; in order for love to be a genuine act it must be a selfless; and love undoubtedly requires patience and endurance through times of absurdity,.
Because of this confusing love triangle, some of the characters seem to view love as a curse. They also claim to suffer painfully from being in love or from the “pangs” of unrequited love. In Act 1 scene 5, Olivia describes love as a “plague” from which she suffers terribly. In Act 1 scene 1, Orsino depicts love dolefully as an “appetite” that he wants to satisfy and cannot. Another example of the characters not “liking” love is in Act 2 scene 2 when Viola says “My state is desperate for my master’s love.” This quote relates to the violence in Act 5 scene 1 when Orsino threatens to kill Cesario because he thin...
William Shakespeare's, Twelfth Night has many themes, but appearance vs. reality is the theme that illustrates a different picture from two perspectives, there are many characters behind their masks and disguises. Some are hiding love behind these disguises and some are trying to show their love through a different disguise. They both still being servants are using disguise differently. Malvolio, servant of Olivia, falls in love with the trap (the letter) thinking his lady likes him, and to show his love he uses a different appearance to express it. Viola, servant of Orsino, falls in love with him, but secretly, not wanting to express her love for him, because of her disguise as her barrier for that case. Viola/Ceasario is wearing a disguise and secretly loves Orsino. Malvolio, on the other hand, is also a servant but still changes his appearance to express love for the great lady Olivia. This essay will prove that disguises and appearances are symbolic of the characters named Viola and Malvolio and are differently used for both.
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.
To conclude, though Twelfth Night’s main plot revolves around melancholic romance, what truly makes it a comedy is the erratic mood set by sub-plots to recall that of the festival with the same name. In the play, both Maria and Malvolio, servants to Olivia, show great aspirations to rise high above their social classes. However, Maria, being much more in-synch with the offbeat mood of the household, succeeds easily in marrying a nobleman, while Malvolio, stiff and pompous, just fails miserably. The conclusion to the play, which is contrary to what viewers would ever hope to happen in their real lives, succeeds in bringing enjoyment to all the lower-class people who watched it. Although the play includes many clever paradoxes, it is first and foremost a play created to entertain servants on their fun-filled rare day off.
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...
Shakespeare wrote Twelfth Nights as a comedic play on how the theme of love takes an overwhelming influence over characters actions. The play’s treatment of love began with a Duke named Orsino who is madly in love with a character named Olivia but Orsino love is cannot be reciprocated because all her love remains with her dead brother. Later in the play Shakespeare treats love as something that can be a joyful delight regardless of the reality. Olivia’s handmaiden, Maria, plays a prank on Malvolio by forging Olivia’s hand writing to write Malvolio a love letter. After Malvolio reads the letter he begins to show how Malvolio is desperately in love with Olivia by following the letters ridiculous commands with delight. Then towards the end there is an encounter with Viola, Sebastian, Orsino, Olivia and Malvolio. At this point Shakespeare displays love as a joyful
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...