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Analyse twelfth night
Analysis of twelfth night as a shakespearean comedy
Summary and Analysis of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night
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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
As many know Shakespeare is a masterful storyteller. Many of his tragic plays such as Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and Hamlet have a keen sense of fate versus free will, but it is not just in his tragedies that this is seen. In his comedy, “Twelfth Night”, the theme of fate versus free will reverses the expected gender roles. Although it was written in the Elizabethan days, gender roles are constantly seen. In this play, Shakespeare seems to reverse the role of men and women, making women to be dependent and not reliant on men.
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.
Amidst the works of Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare and Some Like it Hot directed by Billy Wilder, the theme of deception is shared. Through the events that unfold, deception is forced unto the characters. Be it accidental or intentional, the characters of the works deceive one another and themselves with false appearances. Most conspicuously, the characters of the works deceive one another through false appearances. In both Twelfth Night and Some Like it Hot, characters are forced to disguise themselves as the opposite gender.
The movie She’s the Man is based on the Shakespeare Twelfth Night because in the movie, it goes to show how the idea of gender stereotypes is still influenced in today 's society and what the mainstream perceptions are about gender roles to show how the idea of gender equality transcends into modern day. In the movie and the Twelfth Night the theme of disguise is very important because Olivia in the movie was very passionate about soccer to the fact that she was willing to disguise herself as her brother, so she can be able to compete with the boys soccer team. Unfortunately, her school disbands the girls soccer team. However, in Twelfth Night, Viola decided to disguise herself as a man named Cesario, so she would not be in a vulnerable position in society,
So far in this play we have met many interesting characters and for the most part, familiarized ourselves with them. Viola, however, is somewhat arduous to understand. She is Viola and Cesario at the same time and it can be tough to keep up with which personality she is expressing. Her decision to change her life and disguise herself as a boy was quite radical and she seems to be more active than passive. At times throughout the play Viola has been quite passive, but overall I believe she is more of an active character.
Twelfth Night seems to present gender as a mask to be worn and taken off at will, a fluid concept that changes to suit one’s needs and emotions. By playing Cesario, Viola partly becomes this version of herself, so Olivia, by loving Cesario, has feelings for Viola by extension. When Sebastian makes his reveal, Olivia marries him for two reasons. The first is an external piece of reasoning, being that in Elizabethan comedies such as this, heterosexual pairings must happen for the play to follow the fairly strict expectations of a comedy. The second falls to Sebastian’s demeanor.
This allows Viola, Maria, and Feste to, in a sense, become figures of virtues and do what they can to pull the others away from their excess. Viola calls Olivia out on her self-pity by interrupting her state of mourning by calling her selfish for not sharing her beautiful features with the world and keeping herself locked away in darkness. She tells Olivia, “Lady, you are the cruel’st she alive / if you will lead these graces to the grave / and leave the world no copy,” (1.5. 236-238). She also, in a sense, helps Orsino come out of his self-righteous nature because he falls in love with her for her. He stops his shallow pining for
Viola is saddened at the loss of her brother, but realizes that she is in a dangerous “estate”. That is to mention her vulnerability as a female in the foreign land of Illyria, without the protection of a male figure. Viola devises a plan to disguise herself as a man under the name Cesario and seeks employment under Duke Orsino. Viola makes herself useful to Orsino and is soon made his page. Viola’s cleverness provide Duke Orsino with good advice, and she becomes his confidant.
“Loving can hurt sometimes,” Ed Sheeran said, and this is no lie when it comes to Twelfth Night. Love is often an inevitable struggle in a plot, but in this Shakespearean play, a complete love triangle dominates as the main conflict. It cause happiness, excitement, deception, or even insanity, we still can’t seem to figure out if the benefits outweigh the consequences. Throughout Twelfth Night Shakespeare demonstrates love as a cause of suffering, a ‘knot that cannot be untied’ with Olivia’s love, Viola’s disguise, and Malvolio’s fake letter. Lady Olivia’s initial suffering contributes to the cause of this complex knot.
The play, Twelfth Night, by William Shakespeare, was believed to be written back in the early 1600s. This play was influential for its time due to the fact that theatre-goers of the time had not been exposed to content of this nature. Viola, the main character of this play, uses a disguise to obtain a job that she desperately wanted. Disguising herself as a male named Cesario, she finally obtains the jobs she wants while simultaneously falling in love with her boss, Orsino. A love triangle forms when Olivia, a nobel, falls for Cesario, Viola’s second persona.
With his repeated acknowledgements to Viola’s male persona, it appears that Orsino may prefer “Cesario” over Viola. Olivia, on the other hand, seems quite content to show her affection for Viola regardless of what her true identity is. In both of these instances, there is sufficient evidence to support the fact that Shakespeare’s ambiguity regarding gender create a sense of homoeroticism within the
Shakespeare uses the concept of mistake identities in each of these plays to show that although you make look one way on the outside, it is impossible to hide your true identity from the world. Twelfth Night shows this in Viola dressing up as Ceasario and the eventual confusion it causes when her twin brother comes into the picture. The audience is also gifted to a confusing set of mistaken identities in The Comedy of Errors as each of the Antipholuses and Dromios are mistaken for each other. In both plays the error of mistaking a character for another leads to conflict but in the end in leads to love. Viola ends up with Orsino, Sebastian with Olivia, and Antipholus of Syracuse with Luciana, Adriana’s sister.
Shakespeare’s depiction of Oberon’s use of deceptive love for selfish persuasion efficiently demonstrates the inherent dangers to the deceived beloved’s psyche and mental stability that emanate from using false forces. Another important form of affection-driven deception that can be found in one of these comedies is in both the spoken word and written sentiments of the plays’ respective characters. As there words as only as reliable as the recipient 's perception of their creator, they are neither intrinsically innocent and true nor malevolent and false but are subject to the intentions of their author. Shakespeare’s most obvious and in-depth example of deception via the written word is the tale of Puritan Malvolio in Twelfth Night.
Viola does this to protect her twin brother as she disguise as him as she puts on the guy type clothes(The Comedies of William Shakespeare, Kathleen Kuiper). Also, characters pretended to be someone they are not to find out hidden secrets about people, that they wouldn’t have known otherwise. In the story this is happened when, Sebastian pretends to be Cesario in front of Sir Toby and Sir Andrew(The Comedies of William Shakespeare, Kathleen Kuiper). Sebastian did this to find out the two servants true perception of him. If the characters would have know who was really “under the mask”, they would have found their real true love, and not be
