twelfth night Essay

Society cannot describe or expound upon the significance of the identity of gender of oneself because the question has no finite and/or absolute answer due to the ever-changing variables in common ideology and thinking. The variables just mentioned are in correspondence to the time and amount of influence outside opinions have on oneself and his/her opinion about the matter. The fact remains that the subjective views of one’s personal beliefs equates to nothing in the presence of contravening, biased thinking of the society. People often tend to follow. It is the nature of our species to follow, for general acceptance among peers is the true catalyst of all decisions. In modern society, many new perspectives have been introduced such as gay and lesbian relations, or the belief in one’s gender to be opposite of their physical appearance. “In examining how female eroticism begins to assume discursive shape and currency on the early modern stage, I argue here that Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night offers an overlooked opportunity to witness the dynamics by which a language of female-female desire emerges from the materials of conventional heteroerotic discourses already in circulation,” (Ake 375). The truth lies solely with the person who ponders the question. This is what many literary works attempt to convey, yet few stand prevalent. Shakespeare creates the lucid, romantic comedy Twelfth Night in order to convey the lack of certitude in gender identity of the self, while

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.

In spite of the promise of three weddings to be celebrated, the play concludes on a sour note when Feste, the clown, depicts life as grim, "for the rain it raineth every day" (Act V Scene i). They play’s primary central theme is that of the comic relationships between men and women. Furthermore, it illustrates the traditional, societal notions of “interdependence, and the newly emerging attitudes towards individual choice and personal desire, or as the play puts it, ‘will’” (Malcolmson 163). Although Twelfth Night is a story of love and courtship, nevertheless, it is also a “comedy of gender,” because of its ability to override the traditional Elizabethan notions of the female role through the characters of Viola and Olivia.

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.

In the book “Gender Trouble” (1990), feminist theorist Judith Butler explains “gender is not only a social construct, but also a kind of performance such as a show we put on, a costume or disguise we wear” (Butler). In other words, gender is a performance, an act, and costumes, not the main aspect of essential identity. By understanding this theory of gender as an act, performance, we can see how gender has greatly impacted the outcome of the play in William Shakespeare’s Othello. From a careful analysis of the story, tragedy in Othello is result of violating expected gender roles, gender performance by Desdemona and Othello, and the result of Iago’s inability to tolerate these violations.

In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, we see that it defies most traditional gender roles in the play by allowing his characters to surpass the

Perhaps the theme that is most recurrent in William Shakespeare's plays is that of filial relationships, specifically the relationship between daughter and father. This particular dynamic has allowed Shakespeare to create complex female characters that come into conflict with their fathers over issues ranging from marriage to independence. At the same time, the dramatist exposes his audience to the struggles women face when attempting to assert themselves in a misogynistic world. Through the daughter-father dyads portrayed in The Taming of the Shrew and A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare highlights the effects that gender constraints have on female characters while simultaneously drawing attention to the sharp contrast between both relationships.

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.

In 'Twelfth Night’, gender and sexuality in many ways add to the play’s themes of madness. 'Twelfth Night ' is a reflection of renaissance thought and culture, the renaissance was a transitional period from the medieval to the radical Elizabethan era. The culture of the time was a contradictory one, as from one aspect it was influenced by the patriarchal medieval time, where women were under the rule of men and seen as needing the protection of men, however, from another perspective, the culture was a changing one as women were starting to receive education and many humanists believed that women should be given more rights. The play reflects these attitudes and often challenges the social hierarchy and establishes ideas on gender roles, sexuality and cross-dressing. These factors indeed undermine the expectations of male and female behaviour, and in turn further the play 's theme of madness which has a comedic effect on the audience due to the shock humour it provides.

Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is a play with themes that parallel the folly of the festival it is named after. The main storyline of the plot plays on this a lot by mixing up the stereotypes around gender that were very present at the time. However, a sub-plot involving secondary characters defines this theme even more. It takes the idea even further by relating servants’ attempts to blur the lines between social classes. Twelfth Night’s Maria and Malvolio both have great aspirations to rise above their social class. However, Maria succeeds where Malvolio fails because of her capability to make use of the satiric ambiance of her mistress’s household to achieve her goals.

There is a certain degree of expectation with the genre of comedy that despite whatever difficulties appear within the play, by the end these will be resolved and the play will have a traditional happy-ending with a marriage or a celebration in the final scene. The “Twelfth Night” is no exception to this rule. Despite problems of confused identities and sexualities, the play ends with marriage for the major characters because they “have learned enough about their own foolishness to accept it wisely, and their reward, as it should be, is marriage.”(Schwartz 5140). There is a resolution of harmony to a certain extent and an endorsement of romantic love yet despite the happiness evident in the last scene, there are many elements in the play

In Shakespeare’s play, Twelfth Night or What you Will, the characters are involved in a plot complete with trickery, disguise, and love. Each character is defined not by his or her gender or true identity, but by the role they are forced to take because of the complicated situation that arises. Unlike their gender, the speech the characters give an insight to their true personalities. In the Twelfth Night, the character Duke Orsino uses flowery and over-dramatic language, long poetic sentence structure, and melodramatic metaphors to display his overemotional romantic nature despite the different emotions in his various speeches.

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.

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

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