Twelfth Night Gender Roles Essay

There have been many strict gender roles throughout history, and mainly the gender roles put men over women. Normally, women have been known to stay home and the men have been known to go out and hunt or to put it a more modern way have a job. In the play Twelfth Night, Shakespeare uses the character Viola to disprove gender roles that existed in Elizabethan society because, in the time period, women were seen only as pretty objects to marry, and in the play, Viola disproves that stereotype again and again; in the film, She’s the Man, furthers this argument because Viola is again faced with the stereotype, which she later proves wrong. At the start of the play, Viola disguising herself as a man disproves the gender roles in Elizabethan society

Sebastian and Viola find themselves in the same place, which creates Viola’s disguise to start to unfold. Viola confesses her love to Orsino, but he refuses to love her until she is in feminine clothes, this demonstrates how hard it is for Orsino to comprehend that Viola is a woman. Viola's response to Orsino is “If nothing lets to make [Viola and Orsino] both happy both But this [Viola’s] masculine usurped attire, Do not embrace [Viola] till each circumstance,” (5.1.240-243). In this quote, Shakespeare uses the phrases “masculine usurped attire” and “Do not embrace [Viola] till each circumstance.” To further exploit the idea that it was hard for other characters in this story to believe Viola was a woman. Especially Orsino seeing as the quote was directed at him. It puts this question around Viola, how could she be a man, because she didn’t go along with their idea of a woman. She broke through gender standards when she disguised herself as a man, and this quote furthers this breakthrough by providing information on how her disguise unfolded. Orsino refusing to love Viola in men’s clothing disproves the gender roles in Elizabethan society because it proves that what Viola did was unexpected from a woman, and Viola continues to disprove the gender roles

Viola and her teammates find out that their girls soccer team has been cut at Cornwall because not enough girls are trying out. When the boys coach empathizes numbly with them, Viola asks the coach to try out on the boys team. The coach turns them down and makes a mockery out of them tearing them down and saying they will never be good enough. Justin the team captain comes over and agrees with the coach. Trying to reason with them, Viola says, “[Justin] thinks the coach said it all. Yesterday [Justin] told [Viola] that [she] was better than half the guys on [his] team,”(Fickman). The scene demonstrates that alone Justin said “Absolutely. You're... ...probably already better than half the guys on my team.” to Viola which he felt was completely true, but in front of a crowd he completely contradicted himself saying “[Justin] thinks the coach said it all,”(Fickman). He takes back his word in front of people because what he said completely contradicts gender roles. However, at the end of the movie, Viola completely breaks down the gender roles that were set up during this scene when she scores the winning goal playing for Illyria against Cornwall. Viola disproves gender roles in modern society because she scored the winning goal against