“ Twelfth Night ” is a perfect blend of love affair and comedy by William Shakespeare. Orsino, the Duke of lllyria, is in love with the Countess Olivia. She swore to avoid work forces ‘s company for seven old ages in order to mourn her brother ‘s decease. Therefore, she rejects him. Viola, who has survived in a shipwreck arrived Illyria. Viola thinks that she has lost her twin brother. She decides to dress as a male child so that she can acquire work as a page to Duke Orsino.
Despite the rejection Orsino sends his new page Cesario, who is Viola in camouflage, to seek to win fondness from Olivia on his behalf. Viola is unwilling to travel as she has already fallen in love with Orsino. Olivia is attracted by the Cesario when he comes to court Olivia for Orsino.
Viola ‘s twin brother, Sebastian, who has besides survived in the shipwreck, comes to Illyria. His friend, Antonio, is a wanted adult male for buccaneering against Orsino. The resemblance between Cesario and Sebastian leads the covetous Sir Andrew to dispute Cesario to a affaire d’honneur. Antonio intervenes to support Cesario whom he thinks is his friend Sebastian, and is arrested. Olivia has met and was betrothed to Sebastian.
Cesario is accused of abandoning both Antonio and Olivia when the existent Sebastian arrives to apologize for contending Sir Toby. Sing both twins together, all is revealed to Olivia. The drama ends as Orsino welcomes Olivia and Sebastian and, gaining his ain attractive force to Cesario, he promises that one time she is dressed as a adult female once more they, excessively, will be married.
It is a drama with characters that display intelligence, humor and wit. The characters of Twelfth Night are varied in footings of their personality. Each character has his/her function to assist the secret plan to develop.
Viola is introduced to the drama when she is in mourning for her twin brother who she believed she has lost. Despite enduring from heartache, she is strong plenty to make up one’s mind on a class of action. When she begins work for Orsino she falls in love with him instantly. Meanwhile, Orsino is in love with love and is self-indulgent in his lecherousness for Olivia.
Viola tries to deter Orsino from seeking to court Olivia. She still helps him to make so out of trueness for him. This is besides because she wants him to be happy. She overcomes her emotions by utilizing her wit. She shows her humor when she mocks the second-hand love she conveys to Olivia by utilizing rich and extraordinary linguistic communication.
Like other Shakespeare ‘s heroines, Viola is a really sympathetic figure. We can understand her determination to dress as a adult male, since it sets the full secret plan in gesture. She is the character whose love seems to be the purest. The other characters ‘ passions are freakish: Orsino shifts his love from Olivia to Viola, and Olivia shifts her love from Viola to Sebastian. Merely Viola seems to be genuinely, passionately in love, compared to being self-indulgently lovesick as Orsiono. As she says to Orsino, depicting her love for him:
She pined in idea,
And with a green and xanthous melancholy
She sat like forbearance on a memorial,
Smiling at heartache. Was non this love so? ( 2.4.111-114 )
Orsin can merely reply with a yes.
Viola ‘s chief job throughout the drama is her individuality. Because of her camouflage, she has to be both herself and Cesario. This individuality crisis culminates in the concluding scene, when Viola finds herself surrounded by people who each have a different thought of who she is and are incognizant of who she really is. The force per unit area from other people might do Viola to interrupt down. Sebastian ‘s visual aspect at that minute, nevertheless, efficaciously saves Viola by leting her to be herself once more. Sebastian, who independent of his sister is non much of a character, takes over the facets of Viola ‘s camouflage that she no longer wants to keep. Therefore, because of her brother ‘s visual aspect, Viola is free to cast the functions that she has accumulated throughout the drama, and she can return to being Viola, the adult female who has loved Orsino and won Orsino ‘s love eventually.
To commence with, camouflage allowed people to interrupt away from the furnishings of ego and individuality and go person contrary to who they really were. The thought of have oning a mask or camouflage allows the individual to be person different than what they truly are and it besides functions as a manner to protect the individual. In this drama, Viola, who believes her twin brother Sebastian was dead from the shipwreck, finds a manner to protect herself since she has no other household or relations to back up her.
At that clip, adult females were non educated unless they were affluent, even that was to a little extent in that they were merely taught a few topics that are appropriate for them. Disguising herself as a adult male and going a retainer was a manner for her to acquire near to Orsino, and to somehow win his love. In one scene, her aspirations are recognized although they are hidden from the other characters, she is traveling to speak to Olivia for the Duke and as he exits she says,
“ I ‘ll make my best to court your lady. [ aside ] Yet a barful discord! Whoe’er I woo, myself would be his married woman ” ( 1.4.40 ) .
Viola ‘s camouflage is awkward because she is seeking to make full a function that she does non cognize how to play. Through this clumsiness the reader can feel that Viola herself is a immature tenenager, possibly at the age of 17 and comes from a affluent household. She is still confused with the male and female functions. It is apparent as she is taught how to be a adult male by Orsino with their negotiations about adult females. Subsequently, she is the baffled immature adult female who is falling in love with Orsino. Viola ‘s self-control, keeping her camouflage through all of the events that transpire illustrates her strength and mind.
In a conversation with Orsino, Orsino tells Viola that the love of a adult female is non about every bit strong as the love of a adult male. All the piece Viola speaks her bosom and one small faux pas Orsino will recognize that she is non a adult male but a adult female, but he does n’t detect what she is truly stating or how she is stating it:
“ Duke: There is no adult female ‘s sides
Can conceal the whipping of so strong a passion
As love doth give my bosom ; no adult female ‘s bosom
So large, to keep so much. Women lack keeping.
Alas, their love may be called appetite.
Not gesture of the liver, but of the roof of the mouth,
That suffers surfeit, cloyment, and rebellion ;
But mine is all every bit hungry as the sea
And can digest every bit much. Make no comparison
Between the love a adult female can bear me
And that I love Olivia.
Viola: My male parent had a girl loved a adult male ;
As it might be, possibly, were I a adult female,
I should love your Lordship.
Duke: And what ‘s her history?
Viola: A space, my Godhead: she ne’er told her love,
But allow privacy like a worm I ‘ the bud
Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in idea,
And with a green and xanthous melancholy
She sat like Patience on a memorial,
Smiling at heartache. Be this non love so?
We work forces may state more, swear more ; but so
Our shows are more than will ; for still we prove
Much in our vows but small in our love. ” ( 2.4.94 )
When Cesario declares, “ As it might be, possibly, were I a adult female, I should love your Lordship ” she is stating in a indirect manner that she has a crush on Orsino. However, Orsino seems to be blind by her words. Possibly he does n’t hear what she is stating since he is excessively haunted with Olivia at that minute.
While Viola falls for the Duke Orsino. Oliva, the adult female that Orsino is in love with seems to fall for Viola as Cesario. “ Yet come once more ; for 1000 possibly mayst move that bosom which now abhors to wish his love ” ( 3.1.165 ) . This shows that Olivia begins to fall in love with Cesario when Viola tries to state Olivia of Orsino ‘s love.
At this minute, Viola as Cesario tries to allow her secret out by speaking to person, when she states, “ Then believe you right. I am non what I am ” in her conversation to Olivia ( 3.1.143 ) . The whole camouflage takes on a new degree. We can see more complications arise because of Viola ‘s camouflage.
Peoples would oppugn why Viola has to be camouflage. She disguises as a male child chiefly for protection because she has no household and believes that her brother has died in the shipwreck. If Orsino found out who she really is a female dressed up as a adult male, she would be a female alone in the universe with no 1 attention for her. If Viola ‘s true individuality was revealed earlier in the drama, the drama would fall apart. She will non merely lose the opportunities to last, but she will besides lose the trust of Orsino and Olivia. Although at times she lets certain things faux pas about her individuality, it is ne’er revealed because the other characters are blind to what Viola says.
Viola keeps her true individuality and ego hidden. Meanwhile, we can see that Shakespeare sees love as a gag. The drama shows that Olivia loves Cesario at the beginning. Subsequently on Sebastian arrives. He looks precisely like Cesario and he easy replaces Viola at the terminal of the drama. Orsino who was in love with Olivia shows that he has fondness for his male retainer Cesario, who is really a female. Through the unraveling of the secret plan, the reader gets a deeper apprehension of Viola ‘s character and why she had to conceal her true ego from those around her.
To reason, mask saved Viola ‘s life by supplying her a kind of shelter in a new environment. Viola has the bravery to set on a mask. Therefore, she is able to acquire closer to Orsino because of the camouflage. Viola ‘s camouflage allows us to see that we can go person else even merely for a small piece. Viola learns that in the function of Cesario she had to be speedy on her pess, and support the inquisitory inquiries and statements as to her love and others love for her. As good she acquired the accomplishment to stay her clip, until the clip was right, lest she reveal her true ego or purposes. Unlike other Shakespearian female characters who adopt camouflages, Viola does non take her work forces ‘s vesture at the terminal of the drama, and the remainder of the characters, including Duke Orsino, are left to take her true individuality on religion.
