Twelfth Night Gender

Shakespeare's Twelfth Night examines patterns of love and courtship through a twisting of gender roles. The play centers on the lead female role and protagonist, Viola, who

One interesting character, Viola, spends most of the play cross-dressing, something that was very taboo at the time. Her disguise causes a difficult love triangle between herself, Olivia, and Duke Orsino. While this creates quite a bit of confusion, it also plays a key role in the denouement. Viola’s disguise allowed her to explore the ways in which she would like to be wooed, which resulted in her feelings toward Duke Orsino. It also allows Olivia to end the mourning of her brother and to come out of her shell, resulting in her marriage to Viola’s twin brother, Sebastian: “There, before him and underneath that consecrated roof, plight me the full assurance of your faith, that my most jealous and too doubtful soul may live at peace” (Shakespeare 1240).

Viola has this weak heart because she falls in love with the Duke, Orsino, act one scene four, and can not show her affection for him because she is disguised as a male. The audience finds out that Viola is a female when she tells Orsino of love, then states, “ I am the daughter of all my fathers….and all the sons”(Act, Scene). Viola’s weakness does not help her during this play because she has to hide everything from everyone and ,in act three scene one, Feste has a suspicion of Viola about her being a female dressed as a male and he makes a speech about how smart a fool can actually be. He also makes a reference to Viola being Cressida,( a Trojan woman who was portrayed as the lover of Troilus, whom she deserted for Diomedes), as well as how she pretends to be something she is not and that one day someone will find out who and what she actually is and she will one day maybe get punished for not revealing who she really

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)

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 gender stereotypes 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 the duke Orsino as a woman because of the norms for women's jobs. 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.

On Twelfth Night, another one of William Shakespeare’s plays featuring females who disguise themselves, there is only one female character who employs crossdressing in order to hide her real identity: Viola. This young woman, of aristocratic birth, decides to disguise herself as a young page and assume the identity of “Cesario”. In this case, Viola’s reasons to crossdress are entirely different from that of

Twelfth Night is one of Shakespeare’s popular comedies, in which a female character, Viola, disguises herself as a man, creating a mess of same-sex sexual attraction along the rest of the play’s characters because of her breaking gender expectations. In the world in which the play takes place in, there are very sharp gender expectations, based on age, social level and appearance. In the play, surprisingly, Viola and her male character Cesario, are liked because as a girl she portrays characteristics that are expected from a male, and as a male, she is liked for her feminine characteristics. For instance Orsino falls for Viola because of her courage, heroism and independence which would typically be only be expected from men.

Identity and gender roles are intertwined which ultimately cause confusion and a roadblock in the characters’ true desires. Viola’s life becomes thrown overboard after being shipwrecked by a tempest. She believes her brother Sebastian has been killed. In order to start a new life in a new land, she must disguise herself as a man, allowing better opportunities. Viola assumes the role of Cesario and begins to work for Duke Orsino. Conflict soon arises through the difference of appearance versus reality. Orsino attempts to woo Lady Olivia by sending Cesario. Olivia soon falls in love with Cesario creating a convoluted triangle of unachievable love.

For starters, as Cesario, Viola is at Orsino’s side quite frequently. During her time with Orsino Viola begins to fall in love with him. “I'll do my best To woo your lady: Aside yet, a barful strife! Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife. ”(Twelfth Night I.iv.

Given that men traditionally portrayed Shakespearean women, the character of Viola playing Cesario was essentially a man playing a woman who was playing a man. This aspect of cross-dressing has historically depicted as a source of arousal, especially in comedy. Shakespeare uses dramatic irony to comically show that that the act of Viola dressing as Cesario and the fact that the audience knew that these clothes were not appropriate for her gender was very sexual and titillating. Even to this day, the act of a woman wearing a man’s clothes is depicted in movies and experienced in real life as being heavily erotic. However, in addition to the erotic nature of cross-dressing, Shakespeare uses this to denote the flexibility of gender. He raises a question about what truly constitutes gender: an action, a piece of clothing, an accessory, or merely

Issues concerning alternative sexualities and gender identity register contrast within both the Trevor Nunn film adaptation of Twelfth Night, the Globe Production portrayed in the Bulman article, as well as the written play itself. The Trevor Nunn film interpretation of the play was set with a conventional cast; in which the roles of Olivia and Viola were played by female actors.

Shakespeare finds a great way to work this special kind of love in to Twelfth Night. Throughout the play Viola is Orsino’s servant as Cesario. Viola desires marring Orsino, but he loves Olivia. Viola preforms as one of Orsino’s best servants with him even trusting her enough to deliver his messages of love to Olivia. When Orsino’s heart is broken by Olivia he finds out that Viola is a women and ask her hand in marriage. “So far beneath your soft and tender breeding, And since you called me “master” for so long, here is my hand. You shall from this time be your master’s mistress.(Crowther).” This act of love is a compensation for all that she had done for him. Viola is a loyal woman that pushed all her responsibilities aside just to accommodate Orsino. This is why Orsino would marry her because he knows how loyal she is to him and his word. “Finally given the opportunity to show her suppressed love for Orsino, Viola is able to indulge in the ultimate form of self-sacrificial love that she has embodied all along(Schalkwyk).” This quote by David Schalkwyk presents the idea to why a women would give up so much just to marry the man she loves. Even though Viola was married as a compensation she earned that compensation for her hard work and determination towards

In Shakespeare’s plays it portrayed characters playing different gender roles; especially one notable character wears a literal disguise to accomplish a goal, while others use figurative disguises. These ideas are best exemplified on Twelfth Night. In this comedy, Viola the main female protagonist, dresses as a man in order to search the country of Illyria for her brother, Sabastian, who was lost at sea during a storm. In order to fulfill her goal of finding her brother, as a result, causes confusion among Illyria’s aristocracy. Furthermore, one level of identity confusion is mistaken identity that allowed her the opportunity to seek employment so that she could be independent, and able to take care of herself. In Shakespeare’s time, all female roles

In William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, the female characters have a strong constitution specifically Olivia and Viola. The play begins with a shipwrecked Viola who decides to disguise herself and go under the assumed name of 'Cesario'. Viola 'Cesario' falls in love with Duke Orsino who is in love with Olivia. The Duke asks for Cesario to woo Olivia for him however Olivia begins to fall for Cesario. Later, Viola's twin brother reappears, and Olivia mistakes him for Cesario proposes to him. In the end, Cesario reveals he is Viola, and the Duke proposes to her. Viola's strength comes from her ability to control her emotions which makes her the stronger female character.

In the famous comedy Twelfth Night, Shakespeare dabbles with the phenomenon of love. This is seen through his various characters who are forced to deal with the aspects brought on by love. Characters like Cesario, who is Viola dressed as a boy. In the play the characters deal with their problems around love. The three major characters that love seems to impact more than the rest are Duke Orsino, Lady Olivia, and her servant Malvolio. Each of these characters is affected by love and each reacts differently when in love to out of love. Their reactions to love are based on their behavior, their speech, and their relations with other characters.