The Purpose of Disguise in Twelfth Night Essay

Viola, alone in a strange land, disguises herself as a man in order to gain access to Duke Orsino's palace. She plays the role of Orsino's servant, Cesario, to be near him for she knows that he is the man who can help her in Illyria. On first hearing Orsino's name, Viola says: "Orsino! I have heard my father name him: He was a bachelor

Almost all of the characters in this play either perform some sort of identity deception or are tricked by someone else that is disguised. Viola’s concealment and the resulting chaos are crucial to the development of the plot, and some of the most important elements. Without the use of disguise, there would be little adventure or conspiracy and Shakespeare would not have been able to generate enough distraction and internal struggle in his characters, thus, disguise is the a major basis for his entire

    It is not unusual that the fool should be a prominent figure and make an important contribution in forming the confusion and the humor in an Elizabethan drama. In William Shakespeare's comedy, Twelfth Night, Feste the clown is not the only fool who is subject to foolery. He and many other characters combine their silly acts and wits to invade other characters that either escape reality or live a dream. In Twelfth Night, Feste, Maria and Sir Toby are the fools that make the comedy work in many senses.

In William Shakespeare's comedic play, Twelfth Night, a recurring theme is deception. The characters in the play used deception for a variety of purposes. Viola's use of deception involves her disguising herself as a man in order to obtain a job with the Duke of Illyria, Orsino. On the other hand, Maria, Olivia's servant, writes a letter to Malvolio in Olivia's handwriting to make Malvolio act foolishly because of his love for Olivia. While some use deception as a means of survival, others use deception to trick others and make them act foolishly.

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.

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

Viola is the main character in both works, who disguises herself as a male to fit into an area where men typically dominate. Duke Orsino is the main romantic interest to Viola in Twelfth Night and She’s the Man; a man who is hopelessly in love with Lady Olivia, who pays no attention to him because she is infatuated with Viola’s male identity. Next to the characters, the plot in both works are nearly identical: the female lead, Viola, wishes to conquer gender inequalities and pretends to be a male, only to gain the affections of a fairly popular woman, Olivia. Meanwhile, Viola harbors feelings for the male lead, Orsino, who desires the heart of Olivia. Both stories end with Viola and Sebastian ending up in the same place with the rest of the characters, bring a disturbing but satisfying conclusion to all the disorder. This confusing love triangle is what fuels the film and its Shakespearean source, and runs as the theme in both stories. With a female protagonist interested in a male lead, who in turn is interested in a female side character that is interested in the gender-bent identity of the protagonist, only confusion and chaos is to ensue. It is this confusion that spreads through all of the characters outside of Viola, Orsino, and Olivia, and propels the actions of many characters in both Twelfth Night and She’s the

Deception and disguise are two key themes in Shakespeare's 'Twelfth Night'. As in most comedies, Twelfth Night celebrates different forms of disguise and deception in order to make the play more entertaining. It also develops a strong connection between the main plot (with Viola, Orsino, Olivia, and the others) and the sub-plot (involving Sir Andrew, Sir Toby, Malvolio, and Maria). Disguise and deception appear in many different ways throughout the story.

Olivia is easily the largest victim to love and disguise. Olivia quickly falls in love with Viola, who is disguised as "Cesario". Olivia realizes how far

Maybe we do not want to see them for who they truly are, or maybe the truth seems impossible. Likewise, mistaken identity is a dominant theme in the play. Someone can be something completely different on the inside than they appear to be on the outside. Viola’s disguise establishes mistaken identity creating trouble affecting the lives of Antonio, Sebastian and Olivia.

Aside from the fact that Cesario is falling for a man who is already infatuated, Olivia begins to reveal her true feelings as well. Establishing dramatic irony towards Cesario's disguise and feelings towards Olivia and Orsino add to the comedic effect while developing the plot and engaging the audience. Seeing how

It is well known that Malvolio thinks highly of himself and has a huge ego. Using Malvolio’s over inflated image of himself and greedy desire to advance in rank against him, the trio drop a letter that Malvolio is meant to find. Maria’s handwriting looks just like Olivia so they use this along with other well written “hints” to deceive Malvolio into thinking that Olivia has fallen in love with him. The letter also contains weird things that “Olivia” wishes that Malvolio would do, but Olivia hates these things. Some examples include telling Malvolio to smile all the time even though Olivia is mourning her brother’s death, having him wear yellow stockings and laces even though Olivia hates the way they look, and including in the letter that “Olivia” wishes he would act like the social rank he desires by being rude to the servants. This grand deception by the trio adds a great deal of humor as the audience knows that he is just making a fool of himself, but Malvolio is none the wiser and acts proud of himself. Malvolio’s strange actions due to the trio’s deception leads him to be thrown in prison because he is assumed to gone insane or be possessed by some

I am not what I am” (38). Obviously, Olivia doesn’t understand what is meant by that, but Viola herself knows what she means. Her understanding of who she really is developing. “Viola, a center in this hurricane, cannot act” (French 80). Struggle as she might, Viola is unable to do anything to help without revealing her true identity, which she is not yet willing to risk. Viola, in the hurricane of confusion of who is who, and who she needs to be, has no idea what is really going on. Then, Sebastian reveals himself, and Viola, with some relief, admits who she truly is, “If nothing lets to make us happy both But this my masculine unsurp’d attire. Do not embrace me till each circumstance of place, time fortune, do cohere and jump, That I am Viola” (67). She can finally cast off her burden of being both a man outwardly, and a woman internally, and just become

When Viola said, “Find me the right disguise so I can look the way I want.” Viola is going to disguise as her lost brother, Sebastian who she thought was dead. People do not know if Sebastian is dead or who he really is. Later in the story, Sebastian comes back and thought Viola was his brother. He did not believe it was Viola because she looked exactly like Sebastian, so Viola had to prove to Sebastian it was really her.

Shakespeare includes his first use of disguise early on in the play (A1:S2) where Viola asks the captain to ‘present me as an eunuch to him’. This disguise goes on to become a crucial part of the play, and the relationship between ‘him’ (Orsino) and Viola. Because Shakespeare has Viola say this very early on in the play when the