Free Essays on Twelfth Night

In "Twelfth Night" William Shakespeare has many relationships that grow all through the play. The most important relationship of these is that of Viola and Orsino. The interaction these characters have is the reason for the complicated conflicts of the play. As the conflict unfolds throughout the play the two characters become friends and lovers rather than the strangers they started as. In the first Act Viola and Orsino's are two complete strangers. In order to get close to Orsino, Viola isn’t honest with him from the beginning and disguises herself as a male page known as Cesario. Because of this, Orsino trust Viola and ends up sending â€Å"Cesario† to announce his love for Olivia. â€Å"O, then unfold the passion of my love. / Surprise her with discourse of my faith.† (Act I, 5, 36-27) The fact that Orsino was able to trust Cesario so quickly is the first example of their relationship growing. This growth is proof of their relationship going from stranger to friend. â€Å"He hath known u but three days, and already you are no stranger.† (Act I, 5, 2-4) In the second act, their relationship begins a new phase. Olivia falls in love with Cesario, which leaves Viola in a predicament between Orsino and Olivia. â€Å"As I am a man, my state is desperate for my master’s love. As I am a woman, (now alas the day!), What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe!† (Act 2, 3, 36-39) Viola is now entangled in a love triangle, yet is able to hide it from Orsino. This triangle becomes part of Viola and Orsino’s relationship in the play. In the fourth scene of act 2, there is an important element in the relationship of Viola and Orsino. Viola is able to blind Orsino’s attention on Olivia by telling him a story of love from Cesario’s sister. With her own interest in mind, Viola asks Orsino if he could love another woman if she loved him as much as he loves Olivia. . "Sooth, but you must. Say that some lady as perhaps there is, hath fo... Free Essays on Twelfth Night Free Essays on Twelfth Night In "Twelfth Night" William Shakespeare has many relationships that grow all through the play. The most important relationship of these is that of Viola and Orsino. The interaction these characters have is the reason for the complicated conflicts of the play. As the conflict unfolds throughout the play the two characters become friends and lovers rather than the strangers they started as. In the first Act Viola and Orsino's are two complete strangers. In order to get close to Orsino, Viola isn’t honest with him from the beginning and disguises herself as a male page known as Cesario. Because of this, Orsino trust Viola and ends up sending â€Å"Cesario† to announce his love for Olivia. â€Å"O, then unfold the passion of my love. / Surprise her with discourse of my faith.† (Act I, 5, 36-27) The fact that Orsino was able to trust Cesario so quickly is the first example of their relationship growing. This growth is proof of their relationship going from stranger to friend. â€Å"He hath known u but three days, and already you are no stranger.† (Act I, 5, 2-4) In the second act, their relationship begins a new phase. Olivia falls in love with Cesario, which leaves Viola in a predicament between Orsino and Olivia. â€Å"As I am a man, my state is desperate for my master’s love. As I am a woman, (now alas the day!), What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe!† (Act 2, 3, 36-39) Viola is now entangled in a love triangle, yet is able to hide it from Orsino. This triangle becomes part of Viola and Orsino’s relationship in the play. In the fourth scene of act 2, there is an important element in the relationship of Viola and Orsino. Viola is able to blind Orsino’s attention on Olivia by telling him a story of love from Cesario’s sister. With her own interest in mind, Viola asks Orsino if he could love another woman if she loved him as much as he loves Olivia. . "Sooth, but you must. Say that some lady as perhaps there is, hath fo... Free Essays on Twelfth Night Twelfth Night - Character study: Malvolio Character study: Malvolio: Did he deserve the punishment that he received? The character Malvolio (meaning literally â€Å"I mean ill will) is immediately affected by the implications of his name. His personage is implied directly to be one of negative and somewhat disagreeable nature, which is continued and supported throughout the play, leading to his downfall and mockery which both initially seem to be thoroughly deserved, due to his numerous defects of personality. The first evidence of Malvolio’s undesirable disposition comes with his own first appearance in the play during which he makes a point of insulting the wit and intelligence of Feste â€Å"I marvel your ladyship takes delight in such a barren rascal†. Through doing this he shows himself to be man who condescends to those that he believes to be lower than him in any way, by acting on his own personal belief of superiority, and this later becomes a major player in his downfall. Initial impressions are supported by further vices in Malvolio’s general character and these lead to further aversion to him. He shows himself to be a strict puritan and this is also suggested by the opinion of Maria â€Å"The devil a puritan that he is†. He denies himself indulgences and pleasure whilst at the same time begrudging these things of others. He makes a point of taking the moral high ground over Maria, Feste and more importantly, his social superior Sir Toby, when he scorns them for their revelries and â€Å"disorders†. This in turn adds to their desire to avenge him and bring him from his level of false authority, back to his true social class of a mere steward at which he is unable to give out orders, but only to receive them. Although he is a man of supposed purity and self-denial in practice, his aspirations are such that he becomes hypocritical. In turn he makes his character one of further malevolence. He secretly longs for t... Free Essays on Twelfth Night Critical Analysis of Twelfth Night William Shakespeare Prà ©cis Characters: Orsino, Duke of Illyria. Is madly in love with Lady Olivia. He is a kind and gentle man. Viola/Cesario, Young girl who has found herself in Illyria after being shipwrecked. She is disguised as a boy to insure her safety in a strange land. Lady Olivia, a young and wealthy aristocrat who falls for the young Cesario. Sebastian, Sebastian is at first believed to perhaps drowned in the shipwreck. He is the fraternal twin to Viola and is mistaken for Cesario. Olivia falls instead for Sebastian , since the siblings resemble each other so much. Sebastian is much more impetuous and emotional than his twin, Viola appears to be. Sir Toby Belch, â€Å"uncle† to Olivia and a chronic drunk. He lives with his niece and amuses himself at Olivia’s house by playing tricks on others. He is basically a con artist. Sir Andrew Aguecheek, A foolish and dense knight who is encouraged by Olivia’s uncle to woo her. Malvolio, Malvolio is an assistant to Olivia and secretly is in love with her. He cannot stand the excessive partying of Sir Toby. Sir Toby uses Malvolio as the butt of one of his pranks. Maria, She is the chambermaid, so to speak, to Lady Olivia. Maria (muh-RYE-uh) is cunning and quite intelligent, as she herself decides to play a trick on Malvolio. Feste, Olivia’s clown/jester who in reality is no fool. He is very intelligent himself. Valentine, attendant to Duke Orsino. Curio, another attendant to Orsino. The roles of chambermaid and attendant were not low stations in life back then. They were of the â€Å"gentleman/woman† stature in society. A sea captain, He is a man who helps Viola with her disguise as a boy and promises not to tell anyone. Antonio, this sea captain aids Sebastian. Viola doesn’t help Antonio in his time of need. This is confu... Free Essays on Twelfth Night Twelfth Night Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare is a romantic comedy, and romantic love is the play’s main focus. In this play, Shakespeare shows how much pain love can cause. Characters such as Viola, Olivia, Orsino and Malvolio as well as others are all in love with each other forming a bizarre love connection. In the play, most of the lovers obtain the love they desire except for Malvolio. Malvolio is a steward of Olivia, and is one of the most complex and fascinating characters in Twelfth Night. Malvolio is a very competent servant, but has many shortcomings to his character. He is over protective of Olivia; he is shrewd and enjoys spoiling the fun of others like Sir Toby and Sir Andrew. His imprudence sets him up for torture and ridicule later on in the play. Malvolio has tremendous ambitions to rise out of his social class, and Maria plays on these ambitions to teach Malvolio a lesson about being shrewd. Maria forges a letter from Olivia that leads Malvolio to believe that Olivia i s in love with him. At the close of the play Malvolio is finally made aware of this prank, and he is angered by the fact that he receives no apologies. He utters, â€Å"I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you† (V, 1374). Malvolio, however, never returns to the play to carry out his threat of revenge. I think this is a major shortcoming to Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Maria, Feste and Sir Toby torture Malvolio by incarcerating him in a dark room and trying to convince him that he is insane. Malvolio seems more like a victim than a victimizer. Malvolio is the only one in the story, in my opinion, to suffer, and I would like to see him seek revenge on the other characters for his suffering. My version of the play would include a sharp twist of the plot from a comic love story to a dark brutal tragedy of revenge. If I were directing the play I would have Malvolio say, â€Å"I will stab my tormentors to death and play in their blood.† Then,... Free Essays on Twelfth Night Plays are one of the most subtle forms of literature: while a novel reveals almost everything in its text and description, much of a play depends on the matter between the lines, or the behavior and interpretation of the actors who play the roles. And these influences are invisible, unless we examine the context of the play: its sources, the circumstances of its composition and performance. Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is one such play: in examining the works Shakespeare drew on to write the play and evidence about his audience, we can reconstruct many of his intentions in this variegated comedy. Shakespeare's main source, and certainly his most accessible, is the prose tale of "Apolonius and Silla" in Barnabe Riche's Riche his Farewell to Militarie Profession (1581). Yet "Apolonius and Silla" itself has sources which Shakespeare may have been able to peruse. The earliest (apart from the Plautine Menaechmi, the origin of many a mistaken-identity plot, including Shakespeare's own Comedy of Errors) is the Italian Gl'Ingannati ("The Deceived Ones"), written and performed at Siena by the Academy of the Intronati in 1531. Shakespeare may well have read that plot (he knew some Latin, after all, so Italian would not have been too much of a stretch), or at least its French incarnation, in the author Pierre de Belleforest's Histoires Tragiques (part IV, no. 59) (1570). (Henry V III.iv certainly proves a passing acquaintance with French.) But Shakespeare's reading list is far less important than what he did with his discoveries. Gl'Ingannati is quite a different work from Twelfth Night: more Plautine farce than romantic comedy. But the similarities and differences between the two do much to reveal the aims of Shakespeare's play. The siblings Fabrizio and Lelia are separated during the sack of Rome in 1527, when Lelia is thirteen years old (a likely source for Viola's father, who died "that day that made my sister thirteen years" (T‚N...