William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

In Act 1, scenes 1-3, there are many ways to which these scenes

provide an effective opening to the play. Individually, these scenes

each serve a different aspect, which contributes to an effective

opening. In Act 1, scene 1, Orsino is introduced into the picture,

with his whining and pining towards this love for Olivia, with much

exaggeration, due to the excessive use of imagery, and gives us one of

the central theme of the play – transient and complex love. Act 1,

scene 2 displays Viola and the Captain, and how Viola appears naïve,

but is actually a strategist, and plans to disguise herself to get

protection and also get closer to Orsino – causing a confusion in

gender, identity, and intention. Scene 3, however, gives us another

side of the play, where minor characters are introduced, vulgarism

used, coarse jokes cracked, simply having this crude addition to the

play. Henceforth, we can see that these 3 scenes at the beginning of

the play serve as an effective opening to Twelfth Night.

Scene 1 is set in Duke Orsino’s room, who is the Duke of Illyria, a

fictional place. This creates a fairy-tale like impression, with an

anticipation that the ending would be like in fairy tales – happily

ever after. This brings forth an exotic, unknown feeling towards the

play, a fairy-tale like atmosphere. In scene 1, the scene starts with

Orsino’s cries of how love is torturing him, using a series of

imagery, such as extended metaphors, personifications, and similes,

characterising this play by rich language, and immersing us into the

romantic mood of love, and the central theme of fickle love in this

play....

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...ock of the scene, as he is dense, and slow to understand

the puns and word play Sir Toby and Maria wittily speak. He is poked

fun at, and still, does not know what is going on. We are ridiculed at

his stupidity, but at the same time, can’t help laughing and enjoying

his existence in the play, to create the comical effect of the play.

Another theme of the play, the overturning of positions, of how Sir

Toby can overturn Olivia’s quiet home, to that of a place of

uncivilized behaviour.

Therefore, the 3 initial scenes each have their own ways of arousing

the attention of the audience, and keep us glued to the play, and not

lose interest in just a moment, due to the comical effect of the play,

and the different interesting and amusing characters of the play, and

the gradually developing plot and subplot of the play.