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Deception In Twelfth Night Analysis

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In the comedic play “Twelfth Night”, by William Shakespeare, the idea of deception is a theme explored throughout the entire play. In the case of Viola, a shipwrecked girl who believed her brother to be dead, decides to distance herself from others after hearing about a Lady Olivia who was also mourning the death of her own brother. She then assumes the persona of a young man named Cesario and enlists in the Duke Orsino 's services. The Duke, having befriended Cesario, a.k.a. Viola, asks Cesario to head over to Lady Olivia’s in hopes of wooing her over for him. By doing so Olivia believes Viola to be the young man named Cesario, and falls in love with him. This then causes even more confusion as Viola, a.ka. Cesario, finds herself in love with Orsino, yet Orsino is in love with Olivia who believes to be in love with a man named Cesario. …show more content…

Viola’s deceptiveness of gender creates the primary love triangle in the entire play, and though the other characters are fooled by Viola, her deception was not out right intentional and merely a means to protect

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Viola reveals that she was acting as Sabastian while he was away because her soccer team got cut, and she was showing how that girls can be better at soccer than boys. So she revealed that she was a girl by lifting up her shirt and Sabastian revealed that he was a boy by pulling his pants down. But Sabastian did not even know that his sister was acting as him for the whole two weeks while he was away playing in a band. The principle was shocked when Sabastian pulled his pants down and viola lifted her shirt up.

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623 Words | 3 Pages

Lastly the movie in the play both reacted very weirdly to viola coming out they didn't freak out like was expected in both Twelfth night and She's the Man. The movie and the play are pretty much based off the same thing love, but the movie started off with soccer, where the play was just mainly about love and the shipwreck. Most parts in the movie and play have the same concept. There is a difference between the way they spoke back then versus how they speak right now. The play was written in more Shakespearean text like it was when the play was written and the movie has more modern language more like how people speak now.

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1249 Words | 5 Pages

Olivia Lynch Mrs. Butterfield AP Lit 5/1/16 When you are ready to dive into the vast world of Shakespeare, you can begin by using what is known as a critical lens. The lens that may help you understand the background details of one of Shakespeare’s plays would be the Historical lens. Although there are many different lens that you can use to interpret a story, the Historical Lens is a great lens to dive into to find what really influenced the great ideas of William Shakespeare as he wrote Hamlet including the role gender plays, the comparison of Elizabeth Tudor, and the religious incorporation throughout the play. First, we can take the Historical Lens and dive into the idea of how gender roles were highly represented in Hamlet

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197 Words | 1 Pages

Through the use of the theme of deception through appearance, the film Some Like it Hot is a natural descendant of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. In both works, characters change their appearance to deceive others into thinking they are a completely different person. The three types of deception that occur in both stories are intentional deception, accidental deception, and self deception, all through the characters changing their appearance.

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508 Words | 3 Pages

In his play, Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare has his characters participate in the practice of deception and dishonesty of others - after all, the foundation of Shakespeare’s play resides within a lie. One of the major deceptions in the play is executed by the Illyrian countess, Olivia, as she repeatedly claims to need solitude to mourn her brother’s death in order to avoid Duke Orsino and his obsession towards her. This deception contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole by adding the thematic message, deception and dishonesty is sometimes the better option when it comes to love.     From the beginning of the play, Olivia is introduced as the grieving countess that has recently lost a brother.

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1806 Words | 8 Pages

Viola’s aspirations are not to go against the social order as she is not a real servant but the play allows her to transgress and glide through the class mobility. She epitomizes social fluidity, transgressing the boundaries of specific roles in society. However her flexibility is asserted on her higher social status with which she begins the play. This once again proves that although the boundaries can be broken, only the elite bourgeoisie can truly permeate them completely. Malvolio remains ‘mad’ for admitting his love while Viola moves upwards to gain marriage.

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1424 Words | 6 Pages

As Viola works for Orsino under the guise of a boy named Cesario, the two develop the deepest bond between the characters. Orsino is attracted to Cesario from the beginning, although not necessarily in a romantic way. At first, his attraction to Cesario is based on curiosity. Before sending him off to see Olivia for the first time, Orsino says “Diana’s lip is not more smooth and rubious; thy small pipe is as the maiden’s organ, shrill and sound, and all is semblative a woman’s part” (1.4.31-34). Orsino understands that Cesario is very effeminate, even for a young boy, and is drawn to him.

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540 Words | 3 Pages

Shakespeare does this as he tries to make Orsino different to any other role play duke and by doing this he not only had the 17th century audience hooked but now in the 21st century we are just as hooked in by Shakespeare as they would’ve been. Orsino has seen Olivia once, and the very sight of her has fascinated him to such an extent that his romantic imagination allows him to believe that he will perish if Olivia does not agree to be his wife. Therefore, this romantic, melancholy indulgence is the crux of the play because the duke uses Cesario (Viola) as his bait to get Olivia to be his. He claims he is a true lover, yet he knows nothing or has any experience in the presence of being in love, so also deluded. He has no idea that viola is in love with him even though she has subtly been dropping hints at Orsino.

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1112 Words | 5 Pages

The question of why Olivia, after dramatically declaring her affections for Cesario, would so quickly jump to Sebastian after finding Viola’s true identity, is likely answered by the societal norms of the Elizabethan era. Cesario and Viola are two halves of one whole; by loving Cesario, Olivia loves Viola too. Upon meeting “him,” Olivia says “Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions and spirit/ Do give thee five-fold blazon” (1.5.297-298). She is attracted not just to Cesario’s mannerisms, but to Viola’s beauty, which shines through her male bravado. The “actions and spirit” which Olivia refers to are Viola’s ability to converse with Olivia woman-to-woman, unbeknownst to the countess.

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1242 Words | 5 Pages

Had Viola not used a disguise in Illyria, she would have been like any other woman during the sixteenth century who remained unmarried. She would have been living on the streets, poor, and working much harder than men to survive. Shakespeare wrote Viola into the play to represent how genders are stereotyped even though women are capable of doing anything a man could do. Viola’s character reflects against Lady Oliva’s character who follows gender roles without questioning

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1801 Words | 8 Pages

Since Viola is disguised as a man she can’t confess her love. Orsino on the other hand, is in love with Olivia who is in love with Viola’s male disguise, Cesario. All these love disasters lead to comedic misunderstandings. Perhaps, the most comedic moment in the story was when Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and of course Maria, played a trick on Malvolio. This prank was meant to make Malvolio look like a fool in front of his crush, Olivia.

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984 Words | 4 Pages

Vanity, one of Twelfth Night 's major concerns, is displayed throughout the play by characters who are plagued with emotional conditions which prevent them from loving others. The lives of Illyria 's Duke Orsino and Countess Olivia, for example, remain circumscribed by vanity and narcissism. Similarly, Olivia 's steward, Malvolio, remains encumbered by vanity and narcissism, while Olivia 's Uncle Toby shows himself to be selfish, and his drinking partner, Sir Andrew, stands as a caricature of vanity. In contrast, Viola, an outsider shipwrecked upon Illyria 's shore, suffers solely from grief for her sea-drowned twin brother. In further contrast, Olivia 's lady-in-waiting, Maria, displays none of these characteristics, but instead operates as the play

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1209 Words | 5 Pages

The first instance which supports the notion that a lapse of communication is responsible for the unsuccessful nature of heterosexual relationships is the case of Duke Orsino and Countess Olivia’s relationship. Both start the play preoccupied with their own concerns, Orsino is worried about finding love, specifically with Olivia, meanwhile she is busy mourning the death of her brother by refusing to marry anyone for seven years. However, it is Orsino’s obsession with seeking love and how he goes about pursuing Olivia that best exemplifies the problematic nature of a male and female’s relationship. Orsino opened the play by saying of love, “Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, / The appetite may sicken and so die” (1.1.1-3), essentially saying that he so badly craves the feeling being in love gives him, that he would like in so great a quantity that it would end his life.

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1851 Words | 8 Pages

In Twelfth Night, Viola and Olivia are the central characters to the play’s plot. Each are young women that take approaches to dealing with the people around them, which are mainly men. There is much trickery that goes on in Twelfth Night, but the ending is for the most part happy. Viola marries Orsino and Olivia marries Sebastian, but the events leading up to this are more or less chaotic. Ultimately, I argue that while Olivia uses her higher social status in order to maintain control of herself and others, Viola resorts to trickery in order to bring about her desires.

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1043 Words | 5 Pages

Shakespeare uses Viola (Cesario) as an example of a mechanism that can throw internal conflicts into temporary chaos. Viola willingly faces whatever comes in her way. Her love for Duke Orsino seems too constant and true, unlike the other characters in the play. The temporary chaos of the play is when Viola falls in love with Orsino, who falls in love with Olivia, who on the other hand falls in love with Viola’s disguise, Cesario. This love triangle is very complicated as none of them realize that Cesario is a woman, making this an internal conflict for Viola, as she cannot ‘truly’ love whom she wants.

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