Gender Norms In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

In Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare utilizes the relationship between Olivia and Cesario to subvert Elizabethan gender norms by expressing that men and women aren’t that different and should be treated the same. The play focuses on a love story between multiple characters taking place in the imaginary place of Illyria in the western Balkan Peninsula. A woman named Viola and her brother were wrecked at sea and are separated taking them both on a wild tail featuring love, disguise, and anticipation. Through the disguise of Cesario as a male, Olivia challenges societal expectations by falling in love with a person she believes to be a man, blurring the lines of traditional gender roles and sexual attraction. The fluidity of Cesario's gender identity and Olivia's disregard for societal norms further emphasizes the theme of disguise and the absurdity of

Olivia and Cesario are alone after shortly after Cesario has a conversation with Fool, Olivia is in love with Cesario as she confesses, “a murderous guilt shows not itself more soon/Than love that would seem hid. Love’s night is noon” (TN. 3.1.151-152). Olivia is madly in love with Cesario, who Olivia thinks is a man, even though Cesario is actually just Viola, who is a woman in disguise. By having Viola’s disguised gender as a major part of the plot, Shakespeare is breaking the gender norms by conveying how women and men don’t have to be treated so differently as their personalities are more similar than different. Throughout the play Viola is able to make friends as Cesario with a lot of the male figures and gain male rights even though the only thing that changes is her appearance and identification. The idea of men and women’s personalities being so similar that a difference can’t be distinguished is a breaking of strict gender norms during the time and is a reason for similar treatment of both