Essay about Deception in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

In “Twelfth Night”, disguise is a key theme in order for the play to take shape. Within the first three scenes, we have several examples of characters deliberately deceiving others in order to achieve a selfish goal. An example of this is seen through Viola’s decision to disguise herself as a eunuch in order to find favour with the duke.

For instance, when he finds the love letter that is supposedly written by Olivia, confessing her love for him, and telling him to smile, wear yellow stockings and go cross-gartered, he says, “I will smile, I will do every thing that thou wilt have me.” (2, 5, 165-6). He thinks the letter is from countess Olivia, who he is in love with, and believes that the greatness of being her husband is about to be given to him. Before finding the letter, he wanders around in Olivia’s garden and dreams about himself “To be Count Malvolio!” (2, 5, 32). He imagines how the other characters of the play would serve him, which again shows that Malvolio thinks he stands above everyone. In addition, when Malvolio is hailed by Olivia, he arrives smiling, wearing yellow stockings and cross-gartered, which makes Olivia think he has gone insane: “Why, this is very midsummer madness.” (3, 4, 51). Consequently, in this part of the play Malvolio’s inside does not match his outside. Throughout the play he is a grave character, that detests other persons having fun, so his actions of smiling and wearing strange dress make him look like a madman, which is why he gets locked up in Olivia’s basement. Towards the end, he returns to his initial manner, and declares that he will “be reveng’d on the whole pack of you!”, referring to the characters that tricked him into believing that the letter was

Viola is disconcerted at being confused with Sebastian in Twelfth Night's final acts, but this confusion is not one plotted by men. She and Beatrice remain two of Shakespeare's few undeceived women.

Although Viola faced a lot of confusion and conflicts she was equipped to handle this because she was mostly causing it by cross dressing and lying about who she truly was. But, Maria, Sir Toby and Sir Andres, servants to Olivia, all decided to play practical jokes on Molvolio. By giving Molvolio a note and disguising it to look like Olivia’s hand writing, they caused Molvolio to make a fool of himself. The note left him directions to behave and dress a certain, this caused ignominious Molvolio to become confused. By being deceitful and conspiring, Sir Toby, Maria, and Sir Andrews colors shined through. Not to mention, Molvolio’s true self became evident after misidentifying the letter. Molvolio became arrogant and was filled with self-importance, but when things became clear and Molvolio discovered the note was not written from Olivia he became embarrassed. He could not move forward, forgive and forget, so he left. This is how misidentification can cause conflicts and cause character’s true selves to shine

Twelfth Night is a very feminist play once readers have been reading it. The story’s protagonist is a woman, Viola. Viola displays herself as a rational, strong, witting woman, who has to disguise herself as a man to be able to become a faithful attendant of Orsino. With Viola doing this it creates a big sexual mess as Viola falls in love with Orsino but cannot tell him since he still thinks she is a man. While Olivia, who is the object of Orsino’s affection, falls for Cesario, the disguise for Viola. Once Viola’s true identity is revealed Orsino declares his love for Viola which suggest that he may really just loved the masculinity she possessed. Orsino says to Viola, even after seeing her true identity, “Cesario, come; For so you shall be, while you are a man; But when in other habits you are seen, Orsino's mistress and his fancy's queen” (Shakespeare, Twelfth Night 5.1.2599-26001). After everything has been reveled Orsino still calls Viola by her disguise name…her boy name, Cesario. The readers can only wonder is Orsino truly loved Viola for her or if he was in love with the male persona she gave.

One must always be weary of the truth because it is quite often manipulated to serve the needs of any person who requires that the truth be on their side. Quite often, the only way to discern the truth from the fiction is by way of a deceptive act, because an act of deception always exposes both its self and the truth to be two quite different things. Nowhere is this more true than in William Shakespeare's, Hamlet. One of the major themes in the play is in fact, deception. This central theme is expressed throughout the play in three major forms: the fear of being deceived, the act of deception, and the ultimate result of the deceptive act. The first facet of the deceptive

In Twelfth Night, the protagonist of the story, Viola, is displayed as a rational, sacrificial, sincere, strong, witty woman, who disguises herself as a man, to become a faithful attendant of Orsino. Viola is one with sacrificial and patient love, willingly loving Orsino, and attending to his every need. Orsino, on the other hand, is shown as an emotional man, who has superficial and transient love for Olivia. This love is very abruptly shifted to Viola at the end of the play, when Viola reveals her true identity. Through this contrast of these two individuals, we can see that Shakespeare makes a distinct different between genders, and allows to draw a contrast between characters to think deeper into their characters and purpose in the story, beyond their surface appearances.

With the modernization of any tale, certain plot threads have to be dropped, and others have to be changed. One such thread is Illyria: in Twelfth Night, Viola is shipwrecked on the coast of Illyria, while Illyria is actually the name of the boarding school Viola attends in She’s the Man. Another difference is Cesario, Viola’s male identity in Shakespeare’s original work. Cesario is the name given to the restaurant Orsino and his cronies frequent in She’s the Man, while Viola takes the identity of Sebastian instead of creating a whole new one, as she is acting as a substitute while the real Sebastian is out of the country. However, she has her own personal agenda: to prove she is worthy of playing on a boys’ soccer team. This is also why she takes Sebastian’s identity and not a false name: she wouldn’t be able to attend Illyria since it would be a fake identity, so she had to assume a real one. In the movie’s Shakespearean source, Viola crafts a male identity to act as a servant and start a new life without Sebastian, who she thinks is lost at sea. Another notable difference is the elimination of characters and the combination of traits between others. One example of this is the character of Feste from Twelfth Night, who is portrayed as the fool who is actually the smartest man in the room. This character is

Viola has this weak heart because she falls in love with the Duke, Orsino, act one scene four, and can not show her affection for him because she is disguised as a male. The audience finds out that Viola is a female when she tells Orsino of love, then states, “ I am the daughter of all my fathers….and all the sons”(Act, Scene). Viola’s weakness does not help her during this play because she has to hide everything from everyone and ,in act three scene one, Feste has a suspicion of Viola about her being a female dressed as a male and he makes a speech about how smart a fool can actually be. He also makes a reference to Viola being Cressida,( a Trojan woman who was portrayed as the lover of Troilus, whom she deserted for Diomedes), as well as how she pretends to be something she is not and that one day someone will find out who and what she actually is and she will one day maybe get punished for not revealing who she really

Much of the first half of the Twelfth Night is about disguised identities and general misconceptions about who is actually who. The play opens on a note of melancholy and death, Orsino grieving because Olivia refuses to love him and Viola and Olivia mourning the deaths of their brothers. It is following a shipwreck that Viola disguises herself as a male, ensuring that confusion will be part of the plot. The idea of masquerading as a member of the opposite sex is a familiar device and the “complications, artificial as they may appear, are an essential part of the play’s complete development.” (Travers 308) It is interesting to note that unlike other comedies such as “The Tempest”, Shakespeare does not create an older generation who prevent the young lovers from being together; instead it is the perplexity about gender and that keeps them apart. Sebastian, Viola’s identical twin, is the solution to all of the problems, though his appearance does add to it for a short while. Viola, dressed as Cesario, is mistaken for Sebastian by Antonio, and is asked for the money that he gave to Sebastian. However, this type of confusion adds to the comic nature of the plot as the audience is aware of the concealed identities. Order eventually comes from the chaos, disguises are shed and identities are revealed. The appearance of Sebastian ensures that the marriage will be possible for the main characters; Viola is free to marry Orsino and Olivia marries Sebastian, although she

This is when Portia and Nerissa disguise themselves as men, specifically a lawyer and a clerk, as a way to save Antonio. This links into the way Viola uses an inner disguise to shield her real personality, she first goes into her disguise at the docks in Act 1, scene 2 when she says to the Captain “Conceal me what I am, and be my aid. For such disguise as haply shall become the form of my intent.” This shows how she is covering up ‘what I am [she is]’- a woman, by the personality and physical disguise of a man. From this point onwards there is comedy due to the fact that she is disguised as a man and is fooling every other character, with the audience knowing all about this. This also shows that Shakespeare respects the audience enough to not have them fooled by Viola’s disguise ;and he shows more sexual equality, as Viola plays a major part in the story and without her the play would have a lot less comedy. The structure of the play relies mostly on her actions, for example there would have been no love triangle without her and all the other characters would not have been deceived by her. Therefore, there would be no dramatic irony to create amusement. So, the dramatic irony of Viola’s disguise makes characters seem ignorant and ridiculous creating comedy, but also through the audience’s knowledge of Viola’s true identity. Shakespeare resolves this confusion by Viola revealing herself in the last act, making it a zenith ending, with all the characters present

Despite knowing that Orsino “loves” Olivia, Viola almost immediately falls in love with Orsino. And because Viola is disguised as a man, she cannot show her true feelings for Orsino. After Orsino asks Viola to speak with Olivia and professes his love to her, Viola lets the reader know what she is truly feeling by saying “Yet a barful strife! Whoe’er I woo, myself would be his wife” (Act 1, Scene 4, Line 40). This shows that even though she is willing to help Orsino pursue Olivia, Viola ultimately wants to marry Orsino. Viola’s love for Orsino is revealed again at the end of Act 2, Scene 4. Orsino is asking Viola to try harder in the quest for Olivia and he basically says that there is no love more noble or great as his, so she must love him. Viola then proceeds to say that maybe Olivia doesn’t love him; however, there is “someone” out there that does. She says:

Shakespear portrays the women as fragile, with the way they act, and the way others act towards them, Viola is seen as a very emotional woman, who is in mourning for the death of her brother in (1.2.4) "My brother he is in Elysium", but at the same time falls in love with duke Orsino as shown in (5.1.130-131) when she says: "After him I love/More than I love these eyes, more than my life,". While Viola is in love with Orsino, Olivia falls in love with Viola who, while masquerading as a man is charged with delivering massages of love to Olivia. Olivia's love becomes obvious when in (2.2.21) Olivia, desperate to spend more time with Cesario/Viola sends Malvolio to return a ring to Cesario/Viola which had never been his/hers to begin with. Viola quickly

Maria and the conspirators decide to mislead Malvolio into thinking that Olivia is in love with him. Maria decides to lead him on by writing a letter, but means to be from Olivia. This love letter is meant to instruct Malvolio to do actions that Olivia despises. Maria is able to mislead Malvolio because she has the same print and seal as Olivia. Shakespeare is able to trick the characters and create many portrayals of them.

Viola sacrificed who she was and expressing her love to Orsino so that she could create her voice in the world and be accepted in a dominate male society. Act one, scene two, lines 53 and 54, Viola says, “Conceal me what I am, and be my aid for such disguise as haply shall become.” She portrays her courage when she decides to disguise herself as a young man. She does not have to mask her inner bravery while dressed as a man, because it’s acceptable for a male to be openly courageous constantly, while Desdemona showed moments of her strength which I will discuss. Viola becomes “Cesario” and Olivia becomes infatuated with him because he is unlike any other man she has encountered. Act one, scene five, lines 296-298, Olivia speaks to herself after Cesario has exited, “Methinks I feel this youth’s perfections with an invisible and subtle stealth to creep in at mine eyes. Well, let it be.” Cesario acts as a close female friend would, because he is actually a female. He listens, cares, and makes Olivia a priority. I believe that this is Shakespeare’s way of convincing or proving to 1600’s men in the audience that if they show compassion and understanding toward women, young ladies will fall in love with them easier.