Twelfth Night Research Paper

Love comes in many different forms, shapes, and ways. For example a love one has for an animal is different than a love that someone has for a spouse. In William Shakespeare's’ Twelfth Night, he presents the feeling of love as opposites: difficult and erotical. Twelfth Night is based on a holiday which is the twelfth night of the christmas celebration. The play is just as backwards as the holiday of which is celebrated. The three main characters all love others whom they cannot be with. The complex love triangle within the play includes, a Duke named Orsino, who is in love with a countess named Olivia, who is in love with Viola, who is crossdressing as Cesario, a male eunuch. Olivia falls for Viola’s disguise as Cesario, and Viola falls for Orsino. Shakespeare asserts the contradicting influences that love has on people, through the actions of these various characters who are in pain or feel happy. Occasionally love can cause deep pain and suffering. The relationship between Olivia and Orsino is not mutual; he loves for her is unrequited. After Olivia rejects Orsino’s wedding proposal, he describes the insurmountable pain that love places upon him: “If music be the food of love, play on;/ Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,/ The appetite may sicken, and so die” (1.1.1-3). He expresses that love is something he desperately seeks and craves but that of which he cannot have. He believes he is in love with Olivia, but the truth of the matter is that he in in love with the concept of love: a desire to be wanted and loved.

Shakespeare created his play from many outside sources. He draws inspiration for the dilemma of Viola and Cesario from two other similar stories involving shipwrecked twins. Viola uses her disguise as a eunuch in order to get a job. Viola also has a twin brother who later comes in the play filling a significant role within this absurd love triangle. In Olivia’s aside, she