Viola In William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

Viola’s characters in the film shows the most power as she repeatedly switches from female to male and represents herself different ways. The film shows that being a female you can’t join the men’s soccer team no matter how good you are, which takes away Viola’s power to be able to play soccer. As Viola disguises as her brother she struggles with the social and soccer life because she is always having to prove her manliness, in order to fit in and receive respect from the other males. When she finally proved how manly she was through a series of tough actions, she then gets accepted and makes first string for soccer.

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)

Equity between men and women is a deeply rooted battle. As the modern culture shifts further from patriarchal rule, it is interesting to question why females remained the submissive sex for so many centuries. When examining the play Twelfth Night, it becomes apparent that Shakespeare considered such an issue and used the character Viola and her interaction with Orsino as a vessel for gender equality.

It doesn’t take long for Viola to view Olivia as an enemy because Olivia can have the one thing Viola wants and cannot have: Orsino. No matter how many times Olivia tells Cesario/”Sebastian” that she does not want to be with Orsino/Duke it doesn’t change the fact that Olivia is who Orsino/Duke originally wants and since social network approval can predict the success of a relationship ( ) them being together would make since. Viola’s view of Olivia becomes clear in the third act when Cesario says “that very oft we pity enemies” (III, I, 121-123). An example the movie is the scene where “Sebastian” and Duke are in the weight room when “Sebastian” is told by Duke that he wants to take Viola on a date. In Viola’s mind this is perfect.

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 norms for both women and men 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 duke Orsino as a woman because as a woman she was expected to work at home and be either a “dutiful wife [or a] mother”. 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.

The best example of this is in Act 3 Scene 1. Olivia is pleading with

She becomes “Cesario” and is Orsino’s servant. By acting as a male, she is breaking the traditional gender role of women during the Elizabethan period. During this time, women were supposed to wear a dress, be pure, gentle, and were seen as inferior to men. In Act 2, Viola blames Olivia’s desire for Cesario on women’s frailty by saying, “Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we, for such as we are made of, such we be” (31-32). She is saying this because of the idea that women are emotionally and physically frail because of what they are made of, their anatomy. Duke Orsino then contributes to this idea by adding his opinion, “There is no woman’s sides can bide the beating of so strong a passion as love doth give my heart; no woman’s heart so big, to hold so much, they lack retention” (103-106). Orsino is claiming that women are incapable of love because their bodies are too weak and small to do so. This constant theme of women being frail and weak because of the way “their bodies are made” is seen throughout this entire play. Viola eventually has enough and defends women by saying, “Too well what love women to men may owe. In faith, they are as true of heart as we. My father had a daughter loved a man as it might be, perhaps, were I a woman, I should be your lordship” (116-120). She is defending all women by

Examining the relationship between speech, public space and authority for Viola's Character in Twelfth Night

In Twelfth Night, the protagonist of the story, Viola, is displayed as a rational, sacrificial, sincere, strong, witty woman, who disguises herself as a man, to become a faithful attendant of Orsino. Viola is one with sacrificial and patient love, willingly loving Orsino, and attending to his every need. Orsino, on the other hand, is shown as an emotional man, who has superficial and transient love for Olivia. This love is very abruptly shifted to Viola at the end of the play, when Viola reveals her true identity. Through this contrast of these two individuals, we can see that Shakespeare makes a distinct different between genders, and allows to draw a contrast between characters to think deeper into their characters and purpose in the story, beyond their surface appearances.

Cross-dressing in ‘Twelfth Night’ makes Viola 's gender identity ambiguous, Viola is both a man and a woman, possessing both masculinity and femininity, therefore cross-dressing helps to break down renaissance gender stereotypes and eventually, the patriarchy. The 'original practice ' of ‘Twelfth Night’ was reconstructed in a 2012 globe production which replicated the way in which the play would 've been enacted in the Elizabethan era, by having an all-male cast. This added to the madness of the

Due to this patriarchal society prevalent in Elizabethan literature, women were often seen as dangerous. While the Twelfth Night is more obvious, “Sonnet 130” is more subtle about the dangerous woman. By describing his mistress as defying all of society’s beauty standards, the speaker’s mistress is leading to the downfall of male control. Historically, women have gone to great lengths to meet a beauty standard which men helped create and enforce since they have to meet male standards in order to find a partner. Due to this, the speaker in “Sonnet 130” is describing his mistress as breaking out of the standard which many men interpret as heresy since she is not putting forth an effort to conform to what men say is beautiful. Since she is unique, the speaker loves her for that and this idea that men can love someone for not conforming is something that would have been frowned upon in the late 1500’s to early 1600’s. Likewise, the Twelfth Night uses Viola to warn about the dangers of women. Since Viola was impersonating a man, she deceived everyone in Illyria and from there, she used her position to manipulate people like Olivia and Orsino into doing what she wanted. Men would commonly interpret Viola as a dangerous woman because of that and also because she was stubborn and individualistic. These traits were not commonly accepted among women in the 15-1600’s though they became more prevalent during the enlightenment when women were gaining political power. Viola was created to

 There are many examples of disguise and Viola / Cesarios disguise alone enables her to work for Orsino as a messenger, it causes Olivia to fall in love with her and it causes both of them to disguise their feelings from each other.  From "I prithee tell me what thou think'st of me" to "Would it be better, madam, than I am?" Viola and Olivia spin in a web of doubt about disguised identity and emotions.

as perhaps there is, hath for you as great a pang of heart as you have

Two of Shakespeare’s works, The Merchant of Venice and Twelfth Night, both have a parallel plot structure which involves a woman disguising herself as a man in order to accomplish some goal. In the former, Portia disguises herself as a lawyer so as to enter the Duke’s court and help her husband’s friend, Antonio, avoid having a pound of his flesh cut off. In the latter, Viola disguises herself as Cesario so she can enter Duke Orsino’s court and work as a page. This parallel structure is further strengthened by the fact that in both plays, the woman in disguise has to perform some task that (during Shakespeare’s time) was usually performed by a man. Portia has to defend her husband’s friend, Antonio, in court, while Viola has to engage in a sword fight with Sir Andrew. Despite the many similarities, there is a subtle difference: Portia seems much more confident in her role as a man when compared to Viola. We see when Portia is effective and confident as a lawyer but Viola is reluctant to spar with Sir Andrew in a sword fight, and also when she is weary that the Fool has caught on to her disguise. This difference reflects the theme of challenging prejudice in The Merchant of Venice, and also reflect the theme of highlighting gender difference in Twelfth Night, which reveals a lot about both plays as a whole.

Just like Portia, Viola, the strong female role in Twelfth night, also cares deeply for the people she loves. My opinion, Viola is the most faithful female character in the play. Her love for Duke is so pure and real. She would do anything to make him happy, even if that means eliminating her chances of being with him. Atlas, putting his feeling first shows the kind heartedness that she has with saying: “I’ll do my best to woo your lady-(aside) yet, a barful strife-whoe’er I woo, myself would be his wife. (Act 1, scene 4). Also, another situation that shows her compassion side is her love for her brother. She never loses hope that he is alive. She thinks highly of him, doing everything she can for survival just in case he is alive.