Theme Of Orsino In Twelfth Night

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).

wonder if he is really interested in her or just this idea he has of

Yet he still continues to get a “yes” from Olivia. He grows rambunctious and upset when he says.” O’ she hath the heart of a fine frame, to pay the debt of love but to a dead brother” ( Shakespeare page 11 33-34) He lacks sympathy towards Olivia for her problems, but he has time to listen to his own desires. Nonetheless rather grieving with her, he goes and gives her his words of love. Duke Orsino knows that Olivia is unsure and this is an act of selfishness. Furthermore, he craves something he can’t have, Olivia’s love. Love is to crave to the extreme, it’s hunger that lovers hope they can never fully

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

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

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.

Love is built on trust therefore we can only love someone we trust. In the play, we can immediately see the trust between Orsino and Viola at the very beginning. Orsino reveals the trust he has for Viola when he expresses, “Cesario,/Thou know’st no less but all. I have unclasp’d/ To thee the book even of my secret soul;...” (I. iv. 12-14).

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

Viola, one of the main protagonists, experiences suffering when she falls in love with Orsino, whom she cannot pursue or express her true feelings for. After a shipwreck, Viola finds herself stranded in the country of Illyria. In order to work for the Duke Orsino, she disguises herself as a man named Cesario, which makes romance with the duke impossible. After spending three days with him, she falls in love. Not only does she have to repress her feelings toward Orsino, but to add to her pain, Orsino assigns her to spend her time trying to persuade Lady Olivia to marry him. Viola says to the audience, “whoe’er I woo, myself would be his wife” (1.4.42), because she wishes to marry Orsino.

Later in the play, she can even come across as no more than a lovesick woman obsessed with Cesario who she has fallen for. However, often it is not taken into consideration how strong her character is because she is a woman who seems to be running an entire estate on her own, which would not have been common during Shakespeare’s time if it was even allowed at all. Still, Olivia’s character is shown great favoritism by Shakespeare as even though she is unintentionally tricked she ends up marrying a man who she is at least attracted too since Viola and Sebastian are twins. However, this does bring into question what love actually means in this play.

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

In William Shakespeare’s comedy play Twelfth Night, a love triangle between the characters Viola dressed as Cesario, Orsino the Duke, and Olivia runs rampant throughout the storyline. This conflict comes to a head in Act 5 Scene 1 lines (in my copy) 109 through 147. This is the first, and only, time during the play that the audience sees all three characters, Viola, Orsino, and Olivia, together. In this climaxing scene, it is apparent that Orsino is distraught with more than friendly feelings for his manservant Cesario, and that Olivia is in love not with Cesario, but with Viola under male clothing.

In Shakespeare’s play, Twelfth Night or What you Will, the characters are involved in a plot complete with trickery, disguise, and love. Each character is defined not by his or her gender or true identity, but by the role they are forced to take because of the complicated situation that arises. Unlike their gender, the speech the characters give an insight to their true personalities. In the Twelfth Night, the character Duke Orsino uses flowery and over-dramatic language, long poetic sentence structure, and melodramatic metaphors to display his overemotional romantic nature despite the different emotions in his various speeches.

In William Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night, love as the cause of suffering is one of the most prominent theme of the story. Even though this play ends in love and wedded bliss, Shakespeare also shows us that love can also cause pain. The characters often view love as a curse, something that is thrust upon you and you cannot easily or willing escape. Examples include Malvolio’s love for Olivia, the love triangle between Olivia, Duke Orsino, and Viola as Cesario, and Antonio’s crush on Sebastian. There are countless occasions where unrequited love for another results in heartbreak and sorrow.

At first he pleads for the “excess of it, that, surfeiting” (I.i.2). For, music nourishes the soul; therefore he wants more of it. However, later in the soliloquy Orsino says that because of love, music “tis not so sweet now as it is before” (8). Shakespeare is already showing how Orsino tries to force passionate love for Olivia that it is not as sweet and fulfilling as it should be if it was genuine true love. This theme goes throughout the play and even comically plays out in Olivia’s forged love for Malvolio. Any type of false love in Twelfth Night comes to a crash landing at the end.