William Shakespeare 's Twelfth Night

In Twelfth Night, Shakespeare contradicts vapid stereotypes about gender. Through Viola’s disguise as Cesario, he is able to prove that a woman is able to fulfill a man 's role in society. She is able to fool the other characters and is even able to woo another woman. This reinforces ideas about how invalid the rules and regulations society has made since Viola easily broke through them. Later on in the story, Sir Andrew challenges Viola to a duel. Viola expects Sir Andrew to be a great fighter, and he expects the same from her. This creates a comedic situation since they both are too afraid of each other to engage in the fight. (3.4, 223-298)

The first scene starts off at the Duke’s palace, where we, as the audience, are introduced to the duke, who is thinking to himself. Next, it is revealed that the Duke is listening to music, and is in love, as indicated by “O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou,” (I, i, 9). However, suddenly, he decides that he does not want to listen anymore, as indicated by: “Enough, no more!” (I, i, 7). After this, we are introduced to a character named Valentine who tells the Duke that Olivia “Shall not behold at face for ample view;” (I, i, 28) for 7 years, due to her mourning her brother’s recent death. This does not sadden the Duke, however, as he enthusiastically says that

Twelfth Night is a very feminist play once readers have been reading it. The story’s protagonist is a woman, Viola. Viola displays herself as a rational, strong, witting woman, who has to disguise herself as a man to be able to become a faithful attendant of Orsino. With Viola doing this it creates a big sexual mess as Viola falls in love with Orsino but cannot tell him since he still thinks she is a man. While Olivia, who is the object of Orsino’s affection, falls for Cesario, the disguise for Viola. Once Viola’s true identity is revealed Orsino declares his love for Viola which suggest that he may really just loved the masculinity she possessed. Orsino says to Viola, even after seeing her true identity, “Cesario, come; For so you shall be, while you are a man; But when in other habits you are seen, Orsino's mistress and his fancy's queen” (Shakespeare, Twelfth Night 5.1.2599-26001). After everything has been reveled Orsino still calls Viola by her disguise name…her boy name, Cesario. The readers can only wonder is Orsino truly loved Viola for her or if he was in love with the male persona she gave.

Obstacles are found in many situations, especially true love when disguise is involved. The mistaken identity of one has a powerful effect on the rest of the characters in Shakespeare’s twelfth night as it creates problems for true love. Aside from Shakespeare’s others, the play focuses on mistaken identity/disguise and unrequited love. Disguise truly is an obstacle for true love to prevail in twelfth night. The obstacle of disguise that occurs in the play will be analyzed by exploring situations, character’s thoughts, and the result of poor decisions made.

love when actually they just loved the idea of it. One such a man is

through his vanity is easily fooled into thinking it is he who she loves although

Shakespeare, the favorite dramatist of all time fascinates himself with the usage of the language of Elizabethan poetic drama. His plays were lived to a full appreciation and pleasure. One of his most common plays full of comedies, twelfth night published in 1623, was written with a well hatched plot where the analysis on love is brought in both comic and tragic situation. The reader will note the three very different story lines within these paragraphs. The following prognostications will outline the final act.

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.

In examining each character, we will see the various gender identities in which Shakespeare depicted in Twelfth Night. Beginning with Viola, we knew that she ultimately creates her male persona to search for her twin brother Sebastian; however, as she is looking for him she begins working as a page for Orsino. After some time passed, Viola/Cesario becomes Orsino 's trusted right hand whom he assigns to woo Olivia on his behalf. Not only does her disguise enable her to search for her brother undetected but also it allows her to have the power of a man. She can say what she wants, feel what she wants, and do what she wants without having to ask a man permission as most Elizabethan women did. During that time, Elizabethans expected "women to be housewives and mothers," that was their only job (Sharnette). Obviously, Viola did not have a traditional courtship with Orsino or Olivia. With Orsino, everything was a secret as he thought she was a man. What is worse is that he thought she was a man trying to help him with his relationship with Olivia. This situation only led to a relationship between Viola and

"I swear, that Tobias is going to hear an ear full from me once I see him. I mean, how reckless can he be?" Noel fumed, pacing back and forth.

When analyzing a pair of twins, people will recognize that they seem very identical, but many would argue that their brains function differently and that they behave differently than each other as well. 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 they confuse many other characters as they mix one another up. Viola-Cesario and Sebastian are twins who look very similar in appearance, but nevertheless they are actually two opposite characters when it comes to their attitudes and characteristics as they think and behave differently from one another. 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 the fact that Viola-Cesario and Sebastian are twins, they still look very similar to each other because Viola-Cesario looks exactly like Sebastian when she disguises herself as Cesario. Furthermore, Sebastian and Viola-Cesario both find love in the play, but they fall in love differently because Sebastian is infatuated by Olivia and Viola truly falls in love with Orsino.

In Shakespeare's play Twelfth Night, there are quite a few characters that don't seem as important and generally irrelevant to the overall message of the story. Although it may seem that way while glancing at what the characters say and their frequency in the play, they are all deeply relevant. One in particular is the fool. The fool is one of the most impactful characters of them all by influencing other characters.

Superficiality and self-love are two qualities that can lead to a lot of pain and suffering. A person that only cares about superficial things and is egotistical is bound to live a life filled with unhappiness and regret. Shakespeare’s famous play Twelfth Night shows us the harmful effects of superficiality and self-love. Many of the characters in the play have these two bad qualities and suffer a great deal because of them. In this paper, I will be analyzing how the suffering in the play is caused by the characters’ superficiality and self-love. I will begin by examining the superficiality and self –love of the society in the play. Then I will look at how this superficiality is manifested through the characters of Orsino, Olivia, and Malvolio. Next, I will analyze the consequences their superficiality of has. To continue I will analyze how Viola educates the society of the play, especially Orsino and Olivia, on how took beyond their superficial values. To do this I will look at how she teaches them how to overcome their superficial mindset and learn how to truly love. To conclude I will discuss the implications Shakespeare is trying to make about the society of his time by making the society of Twelfth Night this way. All in all, the self-love and superficiality that are a part of the society of characters of Twelfth Night help illustrate the kind of society Shakespeare lived in.

In the comedy Twelfth Night written by William Shakespeare many of the characters experience emotional pain. The pain that a character name Olivia experiences is the death of her brother, causing her to mourn. Malvolio who is Olivia's steward is involved with emotional pain caused by humiliation, which occurs more than once in this play. Lastly, a great deal of characters battle with the feeling of unrequited love. Even though Shakespeare wrote this as a comedy, there was still a mass amount of emotional pain throughout.

In Twelfth Night Shakespeare uses gender roles and cross dressing to create disguise. This creates a sense of gender ambiguity and this is what makes the audience laugh - but although it creates a sense of fun and liveliness it also examines