Unrequited Love In Twelfth Night

Blinded

The idea of unrequited love is a fear for many that oftentimes becomes true. No one wants to pour their heart out only to have their heart be broken in return. Why is love often unreciprocated? Love itself is often the answer to this question; many people fail to see someone loving them because they are madly in love with someone else. In William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, protagonist Viola has the unfortunate luck of falling in love with Duke Orsino who does not reciprocate this feeling of love for Viola because he is infatuated with Olivia. In Taylor Swift’s song “Invisible”, Swift sings about how she is in love with someone, but he is in love with someone else who does not love him back: “And I just wanna show you/She don’t even

Viola quickly falls in love with Duke Orsino after meeting him, but she is not able to express her true feelings of love for two different reasons. First, Orsino is lusting after Olivia, so he is not open to the feelings of others. Orsino is so in love with Olivia’s beauty that he had built a wall of emotion around himself, and Viola was not able to penetrate this wall. More importantly, Viola is not Viola to Orsino; she is Cesario, who, disguised as a man, served Orsino as a eunuch. Although she greatly loves Orsino, Viola cannot openly express this love because she was invisible to him. If Viola does let the truth come out, Orsino will still not be able to love her because he is solely focused on gaining Olivia’s affection. Orsino does not love Viola because he does not see her as a woman in love with him but as a faithful servant, so Viola and her love for Orsino go unnoticed as Orsino delegates Viola to woo Olivia for himself. Viola, wishing she was the one whom Orsino loved, was deeply saddened by this: “I’ll do my best/To woo your lady: yet, a barful strife!/Whoe’er I woo, myself would be his wife” (Act I, Scene IV). Orsino made Viola his messenger to court Olivia, but Viola wishes she was the one whom Orsino was courting. Similarly to how Orsino is blinded by his infatuation with Olivia, the boy whom Swift is in love with is blinded by his love

When Viola was talking to Orsino about Olivia, she attempts to tell him the truth of the situation: “But if she cannot love you, sir?” (Act II, Scene IV). She wants the best for Orsino, so she tries to imply that Olivia does not reciprocate his love in an attempt to break the news in the least painful way possible. Orsino does not believe this reality, and he is so conceited that he tells Viola he will not take no for an answer. As this method did not work, Viola then discreetly attempts to tell Orsino that she is actually a woman and is in love with him. When Orsino was commissioning her to woo Olivia, Viola said, “As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman/I should your lordship?” (Act II, Scene IV). Viola essentially told Orsino that she was a woman, and she was hoping that Orsino would catch her bait. However, Viola could not directly tell him that she was a woman because her disguise would be uncovered. In a similar way, Swift sees the boy whom she likes is in a hopeless love. So, she attempts to become visible: “And all I think about is how to make you think of me/And everything that we could be/I just wanna open your eyes/And make you realize” (“Invisible”). Swift is so desperately in love with him that she will do anything to be seen; her sole focus was on becoming