The Ways in Which Shakespeare Entertains his Audience in Twelfth Night
One of the main themes throughout Twelfth Night is that of confusion
and mistaken identity. This is illustrated mainly by Viola as Cesario,
confusing all of the characters into thinking that she is a man. The
only people that know of her true identity (apart from the sea captain
at the very beginning) are the audience. This makes it more enjoyable
and entertaining for the audience as they know exactly what is going
on and can see the comedy in the plot as it thickens. This links to
the other main theme of the play, that of entertainment and comic
characters. This is illustrated through Sir Toby Belch; who is quite
clever and enjoys playing tricks on people such as Sir Andrew
Aguecheek and Malvolio who are less intelligent and more unaware of
their humorous characteristics.
The scene in which Sir Toby and Maria trick Malvolio into thinking
that Olivia is in love with him is a good example of a humorous and
entertaining scene.
"Observe him, for the love of mockery, for I know this letter will
make a complete idiot of him"
Malvolio, although he is a servant, often looks down on Sir Toby as if
he is better than him.
"Is there no respect of place, persons, nor time in you?"
This is obviously one of the reasons that Sir Toby dislikes Malvolio
and enjoys playing tricks on him, but is also an example of the
hierarchy being turned upside down. This is something which
Shakespeare's audiences would have associated with twelfth night, a
time of misrule and abandonment of the rules, of fun and confusion.
These are all highlighted throughout the play, meaning t...
... middle of paper ...
...lways entertaining for the audience.
There are many examples; Viola's disguise, love triangles and
(particularly at the end), characters changing who they love quickly.
I think that the ending of the play is very effective. Shakespeare
manages to combine the two plots for the first time by creating a
humorous sense of confusion between the main characters as they
discover the secrets about each other,
"So comes it, lady you have been mistook"
something which until then had only been a part of the sub plot. This
is satisfying and entertaining for the audience as the characters find
out the things which they had had hidden from them. This coming
together and the ending of the chaos is also symbolic as it represents
the end of the holiday season as the rules come back into place and
everything returns to normal.
How Shakespeare Engages the Audience in Act I scene v In Act I, scene v, Shakespeare alters the tone of the play into a lighter mood. However, despite this, there is an ominous sense of fate overshadowing the pair of star crossed lovers. Even today, the tragedy resembles a blue print of the problems the young adolescents of the twentieth century face each day. Shakespeare uses a masked ball to create suspense and mystery, as this would have engaged an Elizabethan audience. However the audience already knows what is going to happen due to the Prologue - "Do with their death bury their parents' strife" - but despite this knowledge the anticipation of the events leading to the arrival of these final tragic scenes adds excitement.
Feste is a jester, clown or fool who moves between the homes of Olivia and Orsino. During the Renaissance, monarchs and some noble families had fools or clowns in their households as entertainers- to sing, make witty observations and play practical jokes. Shakespeare usually includes at least one clown in most of his comedies. This is how Feste earns his living, along with giving other characters shrewd advice. Despite being a professional fool, Feste often seems the most intelligent person in Twelfth Night. Feste seems to be a pivotal character in the play, and his presence makes the play much more than just a tale of romance.
In the words of Harvey Fierstein, “What looks absolutely fabulous in rehearsal can fall flat in front of an audience. The audience dictates what you do or don't change”. Clearly, the success or failure of any work of art depends, almost entirely, on its ability to engage and connect with its audience. Shakespeare, one of the greatest playwrights in history, certainly understood this concept. He targeted his Elizabethan audience skillfully, drawing them in and manipulating the way they interpreted his works. This is evident in one of his renowned plays, Hamlet. Attempts to target the audience are evident throughout the play, but focusing on one speech can provide a greater appreciation for Shakespeare’s deliberate efforts. In act four, scene two, while explaining that Polonius is dead, Hamlet says:
In Shakespeare 's well known play Twelfth Night, which takes place somewhere in Illyria, Lady Olivia is an independent, powerful, wealthy but single woman; the sudden deaths of her father and brother has left her in sadness alone in a big castle to herself. She has her relative Sir Toby Belch who was still around and visited her. Orsino, a duke, has a huge crush on her and is trying to have her to himself. Meanwhile, the jealous steward Malvolio who also has a crush on Lady Olivia, is a guy who is full of himself and acts like he 's king, he forgets where his place is sometimes. In Olivia 's house there is the weak and foolish Sir Andrew who has a crush on Olivia and is wishing one day he would get a chance with her. are also these twins,Viola and Sebastian. They have been shipwrecked and isolated from each other, so Viola thinks Sebastian is dead, and Sebastian thinks viola is dead. Later Viola decides to disguise herself as a messenger and call herself Cesario so she can work for Orsino. Since Viola was so pretty and the way she used her words were great, she won Orsino’s trust. Orsino tells Cesario
William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night In the last act of the play the plot entanglements and confusions are not only sorted out but, also reach their climax. To do this all the plots that have been occurring throughout the play are brought together in one final conclusion. The various plot entanglements are sorted out in what is generally thought to be a happy ending, for instance:- Viola, who is under the mistaken identity of Caesario, finally reveals her true identity because Sebastian has appeared therefore everyone else thinks they are seeing two Ceasario's. By Viola doing this, she can finally reveal to Orsino that she loves him.
Feste, the fool character in Twelfth Night, in many ways represents a playwright figure, and embodies the reach and tools of the theater. He criticizes, manipulates and entertains the other characters while causing them to reflect on their life situations, which is similar to the way a playwright such as Shakespeare interacts with his audience. Furthermore, more so than the other characters in the play he accomplishes this in a highly performative way, involving song and clever wordplay that must be decoded, and is thus particularly reflective of the mechanisms at the command of the playwright. Feste is a representation of the medieval fool figure, who is empowered by his low status and able to speak the truth of the kingdom. A playwright speaks the truth by using actors and fictional characters, who are in a parallel low status in comparison to the audience, as they lack the dimensionality of real people. Thus, the role Feste plays in the lives of the characters in the play resembles the role the play itself plays in the lives of the audience watching the performance. This essay will explore this comparison first by analyzing similarities between the way in which Feste interacts with other characters and the way the playwright interact with the audience, and then focus on the similarities between the aims and content of these interactions.
Hamlet makes use of the idea of theatrical performance through characters presenting themselves falsely to others – from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern spying on Hamlet to gain favor with the King, to Hamlet himself playing the part of a madman – and through the play within the play, The Mousetrap. This essay will discuss the ways in which Hamlet explores the idea of theatrical performance, ‘acting’, through analysis of the characters and the ‘roles’ they adopt, specifically that of Hamlet and Claudius. The idea, or the theme of theatrical performance is not an uncommon literary element of Shakespearean works, the most famous of which to encompass this idea being As You Like It. This essay will also briefly explore the ways in which Hamlet reminds its audience of the stark difference between daily life and dramatization of life in the theatre.
Andrew is funny, it is not intentional. His faults include a lack of wit, a
After Olivia has her very first conversation with Cesario (Viola), where he tries to woo her for Duke Orsino, she immediately falls in love with him. After Cesario leaves her palace, Olivia says to herself ‘Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions and spirit do give thee fivefold blazon. Not too fast; soft, soft. Unless the master were the man. How now? Even so quickly may one catch the plague?’ Here Olivia states that Cesario’s external features are what attract her to him. Her metaphor contains a s...
to address Viola as if she were male, he says, "Boy, thou hast said to
The perfect lives that make up the routine of the Illyrian citizens portrays a society in which enjoyment, and personal gain are held in utmost priority. Shakespeares mocks the passivity of the Illyrian lifestyle to explain to the audience that excess of such festivity has negative side effects such as ego and lack of true love. He expresses that the pursuit of expression and truth in itself invokes enjoyment. Sir Aguecheek mirrors the uncertainty of a person through lack of self-confidence and the desire to openly reveal his true self when lamenting “Is it a world to hide virtues in?” (1.3.131). While uncovering aesthetic and emotional mysteries, the Illyrians find that disport restrains them from actual enjoyment and love. The play follows the audience to motivate them towards dissemination of feelings and expression of passion as a “locus of growth and self discovery” (Logan 223) and to obtain true happiness by ridding themselves of excessive, meaningless fun.
Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night revolves around a love triangle that continually makes twists and turns like a rollercoaster, throwing emotions here and there. The characters love each another, but the common love is absent throughout the play. Then, another character enters the scene and not only confuses everyone, bringing with him chaos that presents many different themes throughout the play. Along, with the emotional turmoil, each character has their own issues and difficulties that they must take care of, but that also affect other characters at same time. Richard Henze refers to the play as a “vindication of romance, a depreciation of romance…a ‘subtle portrayal of the psychology of love,’ a play about ‘unrequital in love’…a moral comedy about the surfeiting of the appetite…” (Henze 4) On the other hand, L. G. Salingar questions all of the remarks about Twelfth Night, asking if the remarks about the play are actually true. Shakespeare touches on the theme of love, but emphases the pain and suffering it causes a person, showing a dark and dismal side to a usually happy thought.
Humor in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night In Twelfth Night we see different types of humour. There is the witty
Comedy is by far the most influential factor in deciding whether or not a story is
Twelfth Night or What You Will is one of Shakespeare’s most famous comedies. It has been performed hundreds of times and adapted into a number of modern films. The main plot of the play follows Viola, a girl who is rescued from a shipwreck and enters into the service of the Duke Orsino disguised as a man. Rising quickly in his estimation, Viola begins delivering messages of love on his behalf to Olivia, a noble woman who has no interest in Orsino’s advances. Over the course of the play Olivia falls in love with the disguised Viola, Viola falls in love with Orsino, and Viola’s twin brother Sebastian, who supposedly died in the shipwreck, returns. Following Sebastian’s return the twins are mistaken for each other, leading to both misunderstanding and marriage in the final scenes of the play. Alongside the main plot of Twelfth Night is an almost equally prominent subplot involving Malvolio, a servant of Olivia, who falls in love with her and who falls prey to a prank planned by the other members of the household who despise his abhorrence of fun. In the article “The Design of Twelfth Night” by L.G. Salingar, Salingar examines the plot and structure of the play and addresses the significance of the subplot. The purpose of this essay is to examine both evidence from the play and articles from other authors, with a focus on Salingar, who have written on the subject in order to determine the purpose of the subplot. In his article, Salingar comes to the conclusion that the purpose of the subplot is to provide a comic mirror of the main plot while amplifying the main themes of delusion, misrule and festivity. Salingar presents a solid argument, however he has neglected another lesser but significant element of the sub-plot which illustrate...