The Role of Malvolio in Twelfth Night Essay

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

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.

In the play “Twelfth Night”, Malvolio is a steward for Lady Olivia. He’s very in love with her and only she has to deal with it. On the other hand, Olivia is plainly not in love with him; she is in love with Cesario. He tries everything to try and win her love but he also has a negative attitude towards others. Malvolio’s behavior is unacceptable and other people shouldn’t have to deal with it.

stereo typed to be full of greed just for the fact that he was a Jew,

Malvolio is a social climber, he feels that if Olivia would love him his status would be higher. But because of

In William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Malvolio is considered an outcast by almost everyone in the play. He doesn’t act the same way that any of the other characters act, in that he doesn’t participate in any of their activities, he enforces rules that the others could care less about, and he is just overall a socially awkward guy. Malvolio not only claims to adhere to the rules of the household himself, but uses his relations with Olivia to try and help make the others follow the rules as well. This upsets certain characters more than others. For instance Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and Maria find his behavior particularly detestable. But Malvolio’s strict coherence to the rules allows him to have a rather high position in Olivia’s household.

Malvolio?s conceitedness was broken and then he sees that he did not truly love Olivia, but was only flattered that he had been loved by someone so beautiful and young.

In the Twelfth Night film directed by Trevor Nunn, there are differences between the sequencing of the scenes, lines of characters, and character stage directions/movements compared to the original text. Directors use film adaptations to enhance the writer’s intended meaning hidden in the original text, however, Trevor Nunn altered the meaning of a Shakespearean comedy. Shakespearean comedies are characterized as entertaining plays centered around a person of power, who delivers a statement of harsh judgment and must make amends, and the comedies usually end in marriage. In Twelfth Night, Orsino, the Duke of Illyria, passes harsh judgment towards Lady Olivia by telling his servant, Cesario, to “be clamorous and leap all civil bounds/

The torture many people receive for a reason varying reasons. Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare presents a prank by five characters; Maria, Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Fabian and Feste, that easily twists into bullying Malvolio. “Shakespeare gives the latest strategy in anti-bulling in schools” by The Denver Post shows how much bullying relates to the real world and Twelfth Night. Malvolio, the steward of Olivia, the noble woman of Illyria, always gets Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, Maria, Feste and Fabian into trouble for many different reasons and their anger leads to a prank fooling Malvolio with an epistle that Olivia loves him and that to show his love he need to wear yellow as the sun stockings with black as night cross guarders up them, live openly mean to Sir Toby, walk around smiling and not mention anything about the epistle, this leads Maria and Sir Toby to lock him up in a dark room and make him go crazy. The thesis and matches the background knowledge because bullying takes place in both the play and the real world. Bullying in Twelfth Night and in the real life stay the same, the epistle works as a form of cyber bulling today, verbal, and physical bullying plays a role that works the same as Twelfth Night as the real, modern world too.

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

Although Olivia and Sir Andrew deceive themselves, the character who most thoroughly deceives himself is Malvolio. He has managed to convince himself that he is superior to all of the other workers in the house. He looks down on everyone else because he thinks that he is much better than they are. Being a puritan, Malvolio believes his ways are correct and that everyone should behave just as he does. He doesn't appreciate how Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, Feste and Maria joke and fool around. According to him, everyone needs to act more serious and proper. Just like Sir Andrew, Malvolio also thinks that Olivia wants to marry him. Since he's in love with her and has already persuaded himself that they're meant to be together, it was fairly easy

himself just to suit his outlook on the situation. For example, the play he twists Olivia's words around to make it seem like she likes his yellow cross-gartered tights when in reality she dislikes them. Sir Toby just considers himself and no one else, not even his companions. He ignores Maria's notification about drinking into the night, and he continues to push Sir Andrew and Olivia to court. Even though he believes that Sir Andrew doesn't have a chance. Olivia considers the all-inclusive community around her, yet she furthermore assumes that no man is meriting her brilliance. She assumes that she is "all that," and that no one can organize her. For Shakespeare to incorporate this sort of just a single was most likely to demonstrate that Malvolio who thinks excessively of himself isn't right about Olivia cherishing him.

he thinks he is impeccable “good fool, as ever wilt deserve well at my hand, help me to a candle, and pen, ink and paper: as i am a gentleman, i will live to be thankful to thee for’t.” (act iv sc ii line 2097-2100) In the begining of the play, malvolio was so rude and belittling to feste and now he was begging for help. he is a hypocrite, he exxpects everyone to forgive him even though he has been so mean to them. “sir toby i must be round with you.

Although Malvolio loves the idea of being count and in a position where he can properly boss everyone around, he also truly loves Olivia and wants to marry her. When we see him walking in the garden before finding the letter he is fantasizing about having, “been three months married to her”(41). He loves and would do anything for Olivia for example biking after Cesario to deliver the ring and although it is his duty he also does it to please her and win her affection. After reading the letter written by Maria he states, “in this she manifests herself to my love”(47). He admits his love to

Malvolio is considered the antagonist of the play and he experiences vain love. Malvolio is the head servant for Olivia and is also the messenger for her. He enjoys interrupting and criticizing others for their behavior or actions. His careless and rude demeanor led to being despised by the other characters such as Maria. Maria schemes a brilliant plan to bamboozle Malvolio. She forges a note impostering Olivia and leaves it for Malvolio to discover. The note intrigues him and makes him want to impress Olivia.