Examples Of Cross Dressing In Twelfth Night

I honestly don’t believe that one’s opinion on same-sex couples has any importance when it comes to transvestite versus traditional role-play on stage. An author or director’s utmost goal is to successfully present his/her work in a way that makes the audience members feel as if they are apart of the show like they were one of the characters themselves. In other words, it is all about believability. If the play calls for a young female character then I am more likely to follow along when a female actor is playing that role. On the contrary, I would be distracted focusing on the male actor trying to portray a female role. In all versions of Twelfth Night, however, the roles are so convoluted that it is difficult to say which would be more believable: Viola/Cesario played by a female actress or male actor. For example, in Nunn’s film, the scene where Orsino is in the tub and asks young Cesario to help him bathe, it wouldn’t make any difference in believability whether the actor was male or female since our minds have already had to entertain the thought of Viola representing both a man and a woman. Others may disagree and say that the sex of the actor/actresses would not have an effect on their acceptance of the play. As previously stated, it is entirely a personal matter.

movie varies greatly from the original play. The frivolous tone of this adaptation fails to epitomize the historical setting, depth of characters, and poetic magnificence of this comedic play. In She’s The Man the plot revolves around Viola, and her struggle to be recognized as a professional soccer player. When the girls’ team at her school is cancelled, she decides to disguise herself as her twin brother Sebastian (who coincidentally leaves for London to pursue his passion in music) in order to join the boys’ soccer team at his boarding school. However she is instantly captivated by her new roommate Duke Orsino, and he asks her to divulge his fervent and vehement love for their classmate Olivia. The movie essentially modernizes the play in order to remove the boring stigma associated with Shakespeare’s plays but with some futile additions that distort or are gross misrepresentations of the original play.

All throughout Illyria, there is romance, passion, royalty, and an immense amount of gender stereotypes. William Shakespeare imagines the kingdom of Illyria to have very traditional norms for both women and men in his play Twelfth Night. In Scene 2 of Act 1, Viola, recently rescued from a shipwreck, hears about a duke named Orsino and instantly comes up with a plan to get closer to him. Her plan is to disguise herself as a boy who she will name Cesario and become one of Orsino's’ attendants. Right off the bat, we begin to see gender stereotypes. Why must Viola become a man in order to work for the duke? Elizabethan society “molded women into the form of the dutiful wife and mother” (Elizabethan Women). Viola could not have served duke Orsino as a woman because as a woman she was expected to work at home and be either a “dutiful wife [or a] mother”. Scene two prepares the audience for the idea of gender throughout the rest of the play. Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is very traditional play due to its ideas of gender stereotypes in Elizabethan society.

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.

From the difference in character and personality between Viola and Orsino, we can see that Viola is displayed as a rational, witty, yet manipulative woman, who loves deeply and sincerely. This is shown from, “If I did love you in my master’s flame/With such a suff’ring/such a deadly life”, as it implies that Viola’s love towards Orsino, is true, and has depth, and other-centred. This is in comparison to Orsino’s love towards Olivia, displayed in his portrayal of love towards her. This can be seen from, “With adorations, fertile tears/With

Romantic desire is struggle ingrained within William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, strained by the nature of homosexual love. The depths of human sexuality are explored in Twelfth Night through the relationships between Duke Orsino and Viola as Cesario, Olivia and Viola, and Sebastian and Antonio. Twelfth Night represents homoerotic love in both radical and conservative ways, while furthermore questioning the boundaries of gender and disguise depicted by the relationships featured in the play. Shakespeare’s work is profound, since the play acknowledges homosexual love without punishment, and challenges if love is truly determined by gender, while also upholding

This inconsistency is embodied in the Twelfth Night when Orsino is irrational in his pursuit of beautiful Countess Olivia, yet he cedes her without regret or uncertainty. The duke then falls instantly in love with Viola, who was formerly known to him as a man named “Cesario.” Moreover, it almost seems as if Orsino enjoys the pain and suffering that comes with romance. He continues to engage himself in the quarrels of love while he states that it is an undying appetite, yet he can say that love “is so vivid and fantastical, nothing compares to it," implying that love is obsessive and bittersweet. Through this sudden change and obsession of love even through pain, Shakespeare communicates that love is something fantastic, pleasing and passionate, and our desires for these things lead our love lives to be obsessive, incoherent, excessive and unexpectedly

Viola’s first words that lay out her gender defying scheme are “Conceal me what I am and be my aid for sure a disguise as haply shall become the form of my intent” (Shakespeare 1.2.53-56). Throughout Twelfth Night Shakespeare plays with the idea of gender and its role in society. The audience sees Orsino, the duke, trip over his words in his misogynistic contradictions of his opinions on women and their ability to love. Surprisingly, Viola also shares in such contradictions. However she is far from being misogynistic in modern terms. Viola’s outward duality is Shakespeare’s means of contrasting her with Orsino and reinforcing her disguise. (maybe: commenting on the nature of disguises)

Twelfth Night is a romantic comedy, and romantic love is the play’s main focus. Despite the fact that the play offers a happy ending, in which the various lovers find one another and achieve wedded bliss, Shakespeare shows that love can cause pain. Many of the characters seem to view love as a kind of curse, a feeling that attacks its victims suddenly and disruptively. Various characters claim to suffer painfully from being in love, or, rather, from the pangs of unrequited love. At one point, Orsino depicts love dolefully as an “appetite” that he wants to satisfy and cannot, at another point; he calls his desires “fell and cruel hounds”. Olivia more bluntly describes love as a

In these lines Orsino implies that he can only be with his true love when she looks like a woman. She looks like a woman when she is in woman's clothing. In these play the characters are able to change from female to male by putting on different clothes. The women are treated differently when they are dressed as men. This brings about the conclusion that clothes define gender. Gender is not about who you are, it is what you look like and how other perceive you. To prove her gender Viola must change into women's clothing. She also must go back to her correct female role and abandon the new male attitude she took on. When Rosalind removes her disguise she also gives up the strength it symbolizes (Erikson 23). Her soon to be husband Orsino will not accept her in her male attire. He says to her "Give me thy hand/ And let me see thee in thy woman's weeds" (5.1.265-266). He can only know for sure that Viola is female if she is correctly dressed. In As You Like It Orlando recognizes his true love only after she changes into her womanly clothes. "If there be truth in sight, you are my Rosalind" (5.4.108). In both plays the women trick people who are very close to them into believing not only that they are men, but not even recognizing. Orlando speaks to Ganymede, Rosalind male persona, without noticing the resemblance to his love. How can people claim to be so in love and then mistake them with different clothes on? This is an obvious

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.

In Twelfth Night Shakespeare uses gender roles and cross dressing to create disguise. This creates a sense of gender ambiguity and this is what makes the audience laugh - but although it creates a sense of fun and liveliness it also examines

     Shakespeare's Twelfth Night examines patterns of love and courtship through a twisting of gender roles. In Act 3, scene 1, Olivia displays the confusion created for both characters and audience as she takes on the traditionally male role of wooer in an attempt to win the disguised Viola, or Cesario. Olivia praises Cesario's beauty and then addresses him with the belief that his "scorn" (3.1.134) only reveals his hidden love. However, Olivia's mistaken interpretation of Cesario's manner is only the surface problem presented by her speech. The reality of Cesario's gender, the active role Olivia takes in pursuing him/her, and the duality of word meanings in this passage threaten to turn the

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.

Twelfth Night, Or What You Will, written by Shakespeare during the Elizabethan era, centers around the convoluted and shifting nature of love. The play makes a point that the ways in which love and affection are expressed and interpreted differ amongst the different social classes. Count Orsino and Lady Olivia, representing the upper class of the nobility, demonstrate their love in grand, impersonal gestures, whereas Viola, whose status is slightly lower, does so in a selfless, more authentic manner. This stark difference in how these two classes perceive love is also seen in how quickly the feelings of Orsino and Olivia change for their love interests once someone new comes along. The nobility has little to no sense of what genuine love is, which is seen in both their frivolous displays of affection and how quickly they are able to fall for someone new.