William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night as a Feminist Play

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William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night as a Feminist Play

I agree to a certain extent that twelfth night is a feminist play.

What exactly is feminism? It simply means subversion of traditional

ideas of gender. This means that men are supposed to be active,

rational, wise, perceptive, loyal and trustworthy. On the other hand,

Women are supposed to be passive, emotional, shallow, vain, deceptive

and fickle.

I agree to a certain extent that “Twelfth Night” is a feminist play

[meaning that I agree to it] as the female characters are essentially

good and most males in the play have flaws. For example, Sir Andrew is

weak, Sir Toby is a drunkard, Orsino is full of self love and Malvolio

is extremely egoistic. In addition, apart from Feste, all the males in

this play are not really witty unlike the females in this play who are

extremely witty.

In this play the women are strong and they enjoy challenges. Olivia is

a good example of this characteristic. She totally enjoys challenges

and does not like a boring life. An evidence to prove my point is when

she was having a conversation with Feste in Act One Scene 5, when

Feste said, “Good Madonna, give me leave to prove you a fool.” And

Olivia replies to him by asking him “Can you do it?” When Feste said

the above he was being brave and persistent. His ultimate motive was

to challenge Olivia and to prove her a fool, Olivia likes challenges

and therefore she agreed to let him speak by telling him “Well, sir,

for want of other idleness, I’ll bide your proof”. She is telling him

that she has got nothing to do and therefore she does not mind

listening to what he has got to say, but the truth is ...

... middle of paper ...

... Toby tells Sir

Andrew to accost Maria. Sir Toby meant Accost as in to assail Maria,

to make love with Maria, to get on top of Maria, but Sir Andrew took

it the wrong way thinking that it was Maria’s last name.

In conclusion, I only disagree because Feste brings out the main theme

of the play. Women are deceptive meaning Viola is in disguise and

Olivia indulges in pretenetence. In this play, men also make the

choice and women do not really have a say they do not really have a

voice and have no place to voice their feelings.

But in an overall conclusion, If I am really asked to make a decision,

I would surely say that yes, Twelfth Night is a feminist play because

all the women are witty wherelse only one male is witty and

entertainment is not all that is needed in a play there are also other

factors to consider.

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