In William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night there are numerous relationships that form and develop throughout the course of the play. The play itself is deeply rooted in the interactions and misunderstandings of both Viola and Duke Orsino. Their genuine and at times confusing relationship adds to the meaning of the play through the gradual escalation of their relationship from strangers to friends, and then to lovers. Their relationship adds to the meaning of Twelfth Night through the complexity and various stages of Viola and Orsino’s relationship. In the first Act, Viola and Orsino are virtual strangers. Viola is a young woman who is left shipwrecked without her brother, Sebastian, in Illyria. She is taken into Duke Orsino’s service as a young …show more content…
During Viola’s exchange with Olivia, she unintentionally woos her as Cesario. Viola has landed herself in a tight spot between Orsino, the object of her desires, and Olivia. Now, Viola, unbeknown to Orsino, is a part of a love triangle involving both him and his love. In Act 2, scene 5, lines 122-130 Viola as Cesario describes the love of her sister when she is speaking truly of her own love for Orsino. She mentions that it is difficult to be in love with someone who does not love back. Viola says directly to Orsino “She sat like patience on a monument, / Smiling at grief” (2.5.126-127) about how painful and austere love can feel when left unacknowledged by both parties. This interaction is crucial. Viola diverts Orsino’s thoughts away from Olivia for her own purposes and asks if he could love another woman if they loved him with as much intensity as he loved Olivia asking “Say that some lady as perhaps there is, / Hath for you as great a pang of heart / As you have for Olivia. You cannot love her. / You tell her so. Must she not then be answered?” (2.4.99-102) This conversation furthers their friendship and leaves a sense of hope for a non-platonic relationship to form. In the final act, Viola reveals her true identity to Orsino and he proposes to which she says yes and thus concludes their romantic journey in the
Complications also arose when viola fell in love with her master, duke orsino, while at the same time had the love interest of orsino, the countess Olivia, trying to woo her. This placed viola in an extremely difficult and complex situation on one hand, she loved the duke and would have liked to do all she could to win his heart. But because she was his servant, she was obliged to serve him and help him win the hand of Olivia. What was a poor girl to do ?
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.
Viola disguises herself as Cesario, a male eunuch, and goes to work for the Duke Orsino. Unaware that Cesario is not what he seems, the Duke Orsino becomes very friendly with Cesario after just three of having known each other. Unsuccessful in his pursuit of Olivia, Orsino sends Cesario to gain her affection for him because he thinks she will be taken in by Cesario's youth. Viola, dressed as Cesario, falls in love with the duke Orsino but ... ... middle of paper ... ...was but a toy, For the rain it raineth every day' There are other songs sung by Feste which reveal a darker side to the plot such as songs with lines: 'Come away, come away death, And in sad cypress let me be laid'.
to get involved in a scuffle, for which Viola is unjustly blamed. Finally Sebastian and Viola are reunited, but only after they have already caused a large amount of chaos and confused everyone. It is only then that everyone begins to discover the extent of Viola's trickery. More disorder is created when Olivia, who Orsino is hopelessly in love with. with, falls for Cesario, who is secretly in love with Orsino.
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).
Viola, on the other hand, often speaks to Olivia in insulting and demeaning ways that, oddly enough, hold an undertone of respect and admiration as well. In Orsino’s and Viola’s attempts to command love through their rhetoric, the audience can observe how love is unpredictable and cannot be manipulated. From the very first scene in the play, Orsino is shown to speak in a very hyperbolic manner that somehow emphasizes himself more than the supposed object of Orsino’s affections. For example, in act one scene one, Orsino laments his unrequited love for the fair Olivia. Orsino narrates, “O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first, /
As prescient and insightful as this evaluation may seem after considering the outcome of Twelfth Night’s romantic pairings, it reads as a very shallow perspective rather than any sort of wisdom – to the Duke, love is never permanent, lasting, or constant (just like the nature of the tides, it always changes). Duke Orsino has no concern whatsoever for Olivia’s feelings of grief after the loss of her brother – she is merely an object of his desires at the moment, and as his eventual courtship with Viola proves, he is extremely fickle in his affections. (Even before Viola’s disguise became apparent, Orsino showed some signs of attraction to the male Cesario – this raises a few questions about exactly how far his romantic indecisiveness
Viola, as Cesario, manages to win the favour of Orsino He truly believes that she is a he. Orsino, still convinced of my majesty, believes that he can win the love of a woman, via a proxy. By having Viola merely read the words he has prepared, he thinks that Olivia will fall immediately in love with him. But while Orsino had his head in the clouds about his love, Viola is attempting to conceal from him, her love for him.
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”
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.
Finally, Olivia officially tells Viola (Caesario) that she loves him after Viola delivers another message to Olivia. Olivia tells Caesario that she has been in love with him ever since she first saw him, and that she cannot hold it anymore. She cares not about what her society would think about her for falling in love with a person not from her class. The reader knows that Viola is not interested at all in Olivia since she is in love with Orsino. Lady Olivia’s love for Caesario illustrates a universal truth about life that when someone is in love, he/she will do whatever it takes to show the other person that they love them. They are willing to sacrifice everything they’ve got for their love. In this case, Olivia is sacrificing her social status and reputation.
Although Viola might be able to relate to Olivia's grief at first, her love for Orsino is so great that she cannot understand why Olivia would deny him. When Olivia expresses affectio...
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...
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...