Essay on Love and Gender in Twelfth Night

Orsino's love, however, is a courtly love. He claims to be in love with Olivia but seems rather to be in love with the idea of love and the behavior of a lover. Orsino is a Petrachan lover who chooses an object that will not return his love. Because he is not ready for commitment, he courts Olivia in a formal way. By sending his messengers to her house instead of going himself, he does not have to speak to her directly. Early in the play, Viola realises that Orsino's love for Olivia is denied and that she would also reject all men for a period of seven years. Viola believes that Orsino might not be rejected if he visited Olivia himself and says to him: "I think not so, my lord," but Orsino, not wanting to see Olivia himself and wanting to keep up the role of the disappointed lover, insists that Cesario woo her.

Throughout Twelfth Night, Viola plays the part of a fascinating contradiction. During her courting of Olivia on behalf of the heartsick Orsino, Viola describes how she would woo Olivia if she loved her as Orsino does: “Make me a willow cabin at your gate, / And call upon my soul within the house, / And sing them loud even in the dead of night; / …Cry out ‘Olivia!’” (1.5.237-45). Later, she directly compares her own love for Orsino to his love for Olivia, yet she does not cry out his name in heartbreak for the world to hear – like her identity, she keeps her feelings hidden. In Act 2, when conversing with Orsino on the topic of love and gender, she claims that although men are more performative in their declarations of adoration, women are

Shakespeare showed us that true love will always succeed. Even Viola was caught up in another true love problem herself, however, this time she was on the receiving end of this. While going to Olivia’s home for Orsino, Olivia had grown to love Cesario. Now, Viola was caught up in a bad situation that there was only one way out. It's shocking that Olivia fell in love with a woman dressed like a man.

He is one who is supposedly love-struck from the elegant and beautiful Olivia, yet she does not feel the same way. Instead, someone else feels the same regarding Duke Orsino: Viola (Cesario). Throughout the play, it is clear Duke Orsino is all about himself, as he places himself at the center of all situations, constantly repeating personal pronouns (Me, my, I) This complicated love triangle egotist Orsino encounters with his lavish lifestyle makes him a perfect form of communication for Shakespeare to share ideas about love and marriage. Some simple themes that Shakespeare communicates are that love is indeed something that occurs first sight, as with Viola, Orsino, and Olivia, but also that it is something one must learn that they cannot control. Viola, Orsino, and Olivia all realize this to a degree, and Orsino ends up changing his love for Olivia to love for Viola (other factors contribute as

One can observe Orsino's love for Olivia as obsessive. Orsino’s first words “If music be the food of love, play on,” introduce him as a love-sick character whose mind revolves around a woman who does not return his feelings (I.i.1). Olivia constantly populates his mind and he does not cease his pursuit for her love, even after she expresses distaste towards him. Shakespeare mocks love-sick individuals for acting like fools and putting themselves through misery. After learning of Olivia’s marriage, Orsino realizes he has lost her and lashes out at Cesario. He threatens him by stating “I’ll sacrifice the lamb I do love to spite a raven’s heart within a dove”(V.i.33-34). Shakespeare uses Orsino’s love for Olivia to differentiate between good and bad love. Unrequited love can cause an individual to pursue violent actions in blind rage. Orsino shows how love is consuming, crippling, and hinders the ability to live out life.Orsino believes his love for Olivia is true, but he is actually in love with the idea of love, and believes he can only obtain it from Olivia. Shakespeare tries to inform the audiences that they could mistakenly believe they are in

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

In the play The Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare gender role is not entirely equal. In The Twelfth Night Shakespeare uses gender role from English Renaissance but also challenges these stereotypes of men and women roles in society. He questions the roles of gender and displays that both men and women contain feminine and masculine qualities. Crying for example is thought to be feminine but in Hamlet “Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, And therefore I forbid my tears” suggest that Laertes is feminine and cannot be hidden by his masculinity. (Shakespeare 8) While questioning the play Twelfth Night it is evident that Shakespeare contemplates the issue and used Viola and her role with Orsino as a path to gender equality.

William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night explores gender differences of the characters to cause problems. After Viola becomes a man, after surviving a shipwreck, her gender starts causing problems when Olivia, the duke’s love interest, falls in love with her. Another problem with gender is with Sebastian, Viola’s twin brother, because people confuse the two for each other. A third issue gender causes is the love triangle between Orsino, Viola, and Olivia. Gender causes issues in this play because Viola uses her gender as a disguise, when she becomes a male servant to find her twin brother in the country of Illyria.

William Shakespeare’s play, Twelfth Night, explores many different themes, the most notable being that you may take another character to be seen as your true self. To start, the male character, Cesario, is truly a female named Viola, who has presented herself as a eunuch to serve the Duke of Illyria, Orsino. As Cesario, Viola falls for Orsino but cannot pursue her desires as she is thought to be male. Before Cesario reveals to be a women, “he” gives hints that he has feelings for Orsino. In Act Two, Scene Four, Orsino quizzes Cesario as to what women he has fallen in love with.

In the critique essay “Romance and Gender Positions in Twelfth Night”, Jastrem claims that a modern audience reading the Twelfth Night would be able to read Olivia as suspecting or even knowing of Cesario’s true gender. However, if the play had omitted Viola’s decision to disguise herself as a male and her identity was revealed at the end, Jastrem’s claim wouldn’t seem plausible. The dialogue alone between Olivia and Cesario doesn’t fully provide the audience with enough evidence to suspect Olivia of knowing Cesario’s true identity. Any audience would be able to make the assumption about Olivia because of the information given in the beginning of the play.

Shakespeare presents Orsino as furious and irritated at Olivia’s constant refusal of his love and starts noticing how Olivia is not the perfect woman he claims she is while discreetly implying a shift of his romantic feelings for someone else (Cesario/Viola).

The play, The Twelfth Night, played at the Orlando Shakespeare is an enthusiastic comedy. The play was assimilated as if it would had taken place in the 17th century. The three female roles were portrayed by men, as woman we not allowed to take part in the music and arts during this time. Further, artificial candles lit the room as utilized in this period. The play is about these two twins, Viola and Sebastian, who got separated in a shipwreck. Viola thinking her brother drowned in the shipwreck dresses herself as a man with the name of Cesario. She ends up working in the service of Duke Orsino who is in love with the most beautiful maiden of Illyria, Countess Olivia. The duke has continuously court Olivia with no prevail. Duke Orsino not giving

Comedy, in the Elizabethan era, often included themes of wit, mistaken identity, love, and tragedy, all tied up with a happy ending. These themes are prevalent in William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, a comical play that explores the pangs of unrequited love and the confusion of gender. Love is a powerful emotion that causes suffering, happiness, and disorder throughout the play. The play also demonstrates the blurred lines of gender identity, which ties into the modern day debate on sexuality and gender identity. The main characters in the play, Viola, Olivia, and Orsino are connected by a love triangle, each person pursuing an unrequited love. Suffering from love and the fluidity of gender are the prevalent themes explored throughout the play and intertwined with Viola, Olivia, and Orsino.

Orsino’s fickleness as one of his distinct personalities, carried on to Scene 4 when he requested an “alone time” with the page, Cesario. His thick description in elaborating Cesario’s feminine features in great detail, “That say though art a man; Diana’s lip is not more smooth and rubious: thy small pipe is as the maiden’s organ, shrill and sound” (I.v. 31-33), while knowing him to be a boy, suggests his attraction to the page brings question to his sexuality. Shakespeare was known to have subtlety incorporated the portrayal of same-sex relationships, physically or otherwise on stage, and this particular exchange is a

It is here that I imagine Shakespeare was trying to fore-shadow future events. The audience may being to predict that Olivia would make rash decisions based on her blind love.