Viola in William Shakespeare's The Twelfth Night
Viola as a main character is the most deceitful; she tricks everybody
into believing she's a man, but as well as being most deceitful she is
also the most honest and sincere. So what are her attractive
qualities? Why does she appeal to us as an audience? In this essay I
will be looking at Viola and her appealing qualities as well as the
way in which I believe she should be acted.
In many ways Viola represents true love, love that is not self-seeking
but self-sacrificing, throughout the play she remains true to Orsino,
trusting him completely "To do you rest, a thousand deaths would die"
she would die for him and willingly. Many people would agree that any
person who could feel like that is stereotypically shallow and petty,
both traits people despise.
She carries out orders unquestioningly to "woo" Olivia, when she
herself knows she is wooing the woman that will be Orsino wife
"who'evr I woo, myself would be his wife" when it is she that wishes
to be in that place. She wants him to be happy and in giving him that
happiness, her happiness she is left alone, is that not
self-sacrificing?
Out of all the characters in the play it is Viola who speaks sincerely
and honestly, showing them what true love is "In faith they are as
true of heart as we" telling Orsino that love a woman can bear towards
him is as much as he can bear a woman. She says to Olivia "write loyal
cantons of contemned love, andsingthemloudevenin thedeadof night"
showing her what real love is and most likely stopped what would have
been a dreadful marriage between Olivia and Orsino, two people so very
unlike...
... middle of paper ...
...e her to an old lady dithering in the street, sure she knows
what she wants but in reality doesn't.
I think what make Viola an endearing character to play is that she has
a heart; she has feelings that aren't petty and annoying but deep and
thoughtful. I think that character is a hard character to play because
she has many complexities and acting her so she does appear thoughtful
is very hard to achieve.
I think that for example when Malvolio gives Viola the ring and
afterwards does her soliloquies that she should stare thoughtfully
down at the ring occasionally looking into the audience but her
attention always being brought back to the ring as a focal point.
Because this is kind of an important part is also adds a small amount
of drama. Viola is a rewarding character but also a very complex
character to play.
tries to make her disinterested in him so that again, he may concentrate on the
what is for her and how she wants to live. So in the end, she is where she
The play Twelfth Night, or What You Will by William Shakespeare is a 1601 comedy that has proven to be the source of experimentation in gender casting in the early twenty-first century due to its portrayal of gender in love and identity. The play centrally revolves around the love triangle between Orsino, Olivia, and Viola. However, Olivia and Orsino both believe Viola is a boy named Cesario. Ironically, only male actors were on the stage in Shakespeare’s time. This means that Olivia, Viola, and other female characters were played by young boys who still had voices at higher pitches than older males.
nothing more than to get hr father out of the way so that she and her
... happiness only. In the end, she is a very striving old woman, she is always determine to make that little boy very happy, even if it is to give him medicine to get rid of the pain or just to buy him presents to ease the emotions he is going through.
Viola as Cesario faced the most challenges in the play. It almost seems that fate never leaves her alone, as her difficulties start as soon as we are introduced to her, washed up upon the shores of illyria having barely survived a shipwreck. Alone in a foreign land with her only kin, her twin brother Sebastian believed to be dead, she is left to fend for herself for, or so it seemed, the remainder of her days.
yearned for the fantasy of finally being with her. His expectations could and would not be
In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and in Molière’s The Imaginary Invalid, two ladies are presented, that are not necessarily the leading protagonist, but they help unravel the plays’ plots into something amazing. Twelfth Night features Maria, the lady in waiting to Olivia. At first Maria comes off as a dilettante, later on we find out that’s not the case at all. Meanwhile, in The Imaginary Invalid, there is the disputatious Toinette, who is the maidservant and nurse to the imaginary invalid himself, Argan. Maria and Toinette are two strong women characters, their strength and wit is depicted through Maria and Toinette’s deceiving schemes to make their plays more stimulating as well as their objectivity throughout all the chaos in their respective play.
William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night Twelfth Night is one of Shakespeare's most famous comedies, involving complex plots, which result in hilarious outcomes. The main plot of Twelfth Night tells of Count Orsino's efforts to woo the Lady Olivia. who does not return his affection. Instead, Olivia is smitten with her. Orsino's servant Cesario, unaware of his true identity.
William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night In 'Twelfth Night' Olivia's trusted steward Malvolio, like Sir Andrew, is the 'butt of comedy'. His very name suggests 'ill-will', which echoes his role in the play. Malvolio is an egotistical, "overweening rogue", who is a straight laced, puritanical, social climbing rebuker of others for their anti-social and often sinful behaviour, or as he put it, "misdemeanours". Malvolio's character is summarised excellently by Maria in Act II Scene III: The devil a puritan that he is, or anything, constantly, but a time-pleaser, an affectioned ass that cons state without book and utters it by great swarths; the best persuaded of himself, so crammed, as he thinks with excellencies, that if is his grounds of faith that all that look on him love him.
The character of Viola (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) is first seen at The Curtain Theatre where she is captivated by the performance of Shakespeare’s "The Two Gentlemen of Verona," while the rest of the audience seems bored. She is currently being urged to marry Lord Wessex, but wants to marry for love. She wants to have real love, "love as there has never been in a play." She is inspired, however by the theatre and especially by the works of Shakespeare.
to support her, and that without a woman a man is incapable of living independently and caring
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/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...
‘Twelfth Night’ or ‘What You Will’ by Shakespeare is seen as a comedy for various reasons. However, on many occasions, this play is almost categorised as a tragedy because of the different situations that the killjoy figure has to endure, through the use of mockery. Because of this, critics find that there is a very thin line between the categorisation of the novel and therefore see ‘Twelfth Night’ as both comedy and tragedy despite the fact that the audience and Shakespeare call this play a comedy. Furthermore, Mel Brooks says ‘Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall down an open sewer and die’. Therefore, this just shows how close the genres of comedy and tragedy really are as they can both lead to similar consequences like those Malvolio faced when he was mocked excessively by Shakespeare throughout all five acts of ‘Twelfth Night’. However, this mockery also shows many social messages as Malvolio was mocked for being a puritan which implies that Elizabethans were against their doings.