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William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night Essay examples

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William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night In 'Twelfth Night' Olivia's trusted steward Malvolio, like Sir Andrew, is the 'butt of comedy'. His very name suggests 'ill-will', which echoes his role in the play. Malvolio is an egotistical, "overweening rogue", who is a straight laced, puritanical, social climbing rebuker of others for their anti-social and often sinful behaviour, or as he put it, "misdemeanours". Malvolio's character is summarised excellently by Maria in Act II Scene III: The devil a puritan that he is, or anything, constantly, but a time-pleaser, an affectioned ass that cons state without book and utters it by great swarths; the best persuaded of himself, so crammed, as he thinks with …show more content…

She says that he is, "sick of self love." Malvolio's reaction to this statement shows one of three possible things about his character. Either he has enough self control to simply say nothing, demonstrating the traditional, astute, hard faced, and faithful servant Malvolio, or it could be used to show his complete, blissful isolation from the outer world, too busy wallowing in the self love that Olivia was talking about, or finally, and my personal choice, Malvolio could laugh the remark off to Olivia's face, but when she turns away show his inner hurt, at the malicious remark that had come from the mouth of the woman he loves, by facial expressions directed at the audience, thus showing a more sensitive and loving Malvolio which he is afraid to show to others. Malvolio is a very versatile character and can be played in numerous different ways ranging from the gloriously funny, but not offensively, vain Malvolio, to the manically self righteous extremist puritan who deserves every bit of what comes his way. I feel that the manner in which the character of Malvolio is played all depends on the reaction you want to achieve from the audience: either you must see Malvolio as the victim of Sir Toby, or Sir Toby as the victim of Malvolio. I have chosen the reaction of the sympathy for Malvolio

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