Twelfth Night By William Shakespeare

The first love of an individual may imprint on them distorted perceptions of romance from inexperience. Orsino describes in his initial situation, “O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first, methought she purged the air of pestilence.

Twelfth Night, a romantic piece by William Shakespeare expresses a complex love triangle in the village of Illyria. One of the primary protagonists, Viola is washed up onto the shores during violent storms that separate her and her biological twin brother Sebastian. Viola is uncertain if her brother Sebastian survived. It is a coincidence, that the tragic shipwreck carried Viola to the enemy state (Illyria). Unfortunately, this forces the character to go into disguise in order to survive on the male dominated land. Viola is perhaps the strongest character in this work, maintaining her roles and ignoring temptations. The character uses Sebastian strength in his absence. On the other hand, when in Sebastian’s presence Viola becomes weak

Gender is one of the most prevalent themes in William Shakespeare’s comedy, Twelfth Night. In Twelfth Night, the play is based on Viola, a twin who gets separated away from her brother in a shipwreck. To find work, Viola undertakes the disguise of Cesario, a young male who wants to work in the household of Duke Orsino. Orsino has been personally dealing with the love he feels for Lady Olivia, who refuses to entertain any man since she is dealing with the loss of her brother and father. In Orsino’s efforts to have Cesario facilitate love between himself and Olivia, Olivia ends up falling in love with Cesario. Viola has also found herself falling in love with Orsino, thus creating a love triangle between these three. In this love triangle, Shakespeare exhibits a challenge and a reinforcement of the gender roles that were present in the setting he personally wrote the play from. Through Olivia’s attraction to Cesario, he challenges these gender roles and through Orsino’s attraction to Cesario, he reinforces these gender roles.

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

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

Through comedy, Shakespeare bends the rules for the gender in the play Twelfth Night. Viola and Olivia are two women who complicate the relationships they have. Viola dresses as a man who she calls Cesario, while her double life has her learning the roles of both male and female. She meets Olivia, who struggles with her own relationships and looks to Viola as Cesario for help. Both these women go through the same struggles of the gender roles, but because Shakespeare created by Viola to play both male and female her roles allow her to push the role of the female gender in society. These roles that they face are heteronormative verse binary gender, use of male and female communication, male power verse female power, relationships and identity.

At first glance, twins may seem identical, but many would argue that they behave differently with uniquely hardwired brains. In William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, two main characters Viola-Cesario and Sebastian are lost in a shipwreck, but later reunite with each other and along their journey, confuse many other characters while mixing one another up. Viola-Cesario and Sebastian are twins who look very similar in appearance, but nevertheless they are actually two opposite characters with different attitudes and characteristics which shape their unique behavior. For instance, Sebastian and Viola-Cesario behave differently from each other since Sebastian is an aggressive person and Viola-Cesario is a peaceful person. However, considering

Viola repeatedly professed Orsino’s love to Olivia even though it meant the possible risk of Olivia and Orsino getting married. Viola says “I’ll do my best to woo your lady. Yet a bartful strife: Woe’er I woo, myself would be his wife” (75). This shows the audience how much Viola wanted Orsino to be happy even though it hurt Viola to see Orsino love another woman. There is no love more genuine than when a person sacrifices their own happiness in order to make their lover happy. This is especially true because during the time period of Twelfth Night, a woman’s success was measured by her ability to marry well. By helping Orsino court Olivia, Viola jeopardized her chances to a socially advantageous marriage. Viola loved Orsino so much that she was willing to sacrifice not only her personal happiness, but also her monetary success. Through Viola’s character Shakespeare demonstrates his hopefulness that true love

Shakespeare often writes his plays to be found comedic by using similar key elements. In the comedy the Twelfth Night, Shakespeare uses the elements of love triangles, role reversal, and rule breaking to create humor. Shakespeare often uses love triangles to create unusual situations of love’s absurdity. To create this, in The Twelfth Night, Shakespeare creates a woman, Viola, who dresses as a man in order to gain entrance into the noble world. Duke Orsino is madly in love with Olivia who falls in love with Cesario, who is really 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

When Act 2 begins, we meet Sebastian, who has washed up on shore and been taken care of by a man named Antonio. Sebastian is understandably upset, due to the fact that he thinks his sister Viola is dead, and has decided to go traveling, stopping at Duke Orsino's court first. Because Antonio has grown attached to Sebastian, he decides to follow him there.

One of the many comedic plays written by William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, or What You Will, was produced into a film. The key actors within this film are Frances Barber, Chris Hollis, Caroline Langrishe, Christopher Ravenscroft, and Richard Briers. The 1988 film, directed by Paul Kafno, kept an almost perfect faithfulness to the text and it was very easy for me to follow along in the book. Although the film was not the most entertaining one, it did a great job of portraying the famous Shakespeare play.

The Twelfth Night was a religious festival held during the Elizabethan Era. It also 

celebrated the concept of the reversal of normal order, where the lower and upper class had the 

chance to experience each other’s roles in society. It was a day of celebration in which enabled a 

time of foolishness for each class. This religious festival seem to have influenced Shakespeare’s 

play, Twelfth Night in relations to the concept of the foolishness celebration of switching the 

roles of upper and lower class. In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, he utilizes Feste’s role as a clown 

to be the figure who functions as a blur for class distinction and to also show that words hold 

power regardless of ones status in society. Malvolio functions as the fool who hopelessly

William Shakespeare has entertained people for centuries with his romantic comedies. One of his well-known plays is Twelfth Night which explores the relationships between friends. The main characters in the play have to overcome many different challenging obstacles and when all hope seems to be against them, they end up overpowering their difficulties and fall in love. . Jesus’s words in John chapter 15 are perfect: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." Loyalty and trust was shown in Jesus’s actions because he did what he promised and gave his life up for the sins of others. Compatibility is shown between the friendship of Toby and Andrew. Trust must be present amongst friends in order for the relationship to be at its fullest. Loyalty is expressed between the relationship of Antonio and Sebastian. Throughout the play Twelfth Night, Shakespeare demonstrates that true friends are always compatible, trustworthy, and loyal to each other.

Orsino, in regards to Olivia, treats love and marriage as if they are only games to entertain himself with. In act one Orsino plays into the notion that women, in his case Olivia, are up for the taking. A common belief that is found in traditional marriage, especially in the upper class, is that women are essentially prizes for men to win. Orsino plays into this by explaining how much Olivia will love him once he wins her because of the strong affection she has for her deceased brother. He learns that Olivia has decided to make a vow to remove herself from society for seven years to mourn her brother’s death, yet Orsino