"Twelfth Night" - A Tragic Comedy

Shakespeare’s comedies have always had a distinct subtext of tragedy as shown in Twelfth Night. It teeters on the brink of tragedian literature similar to his tragedies, such as Hamlet, through the ambiguity of the main characters and unfinished resolutions.

Comedies are generally morally clear- the villains and heroes are clearly defined. Twelfth Night’s characters have a layer of ambiguity stemming from their use of illusion in the form of mistaken identity. A central theme of the play is the contrast between illusion and reality and how the characters in the play manipulate their various roles for their own benefit and against each other. Shakespeare directs the audience to this theme immediately as Act 1 begins with the introduction of a shipwrecked woman, whose name we do not learn till the end of the play, is rescued and pretends to be a young man named Cesario in order to pass favor with the foreign land’s aristocracy.

Twelfth Night resembles Hamlet’s use of illusion via syntax and dramatic irony. In Hamlet, Prince Hamlet pretends to be mad in order to lower Claudius’ guard and resolve his father’s usurpation. He’s for the most part similar to Twelfth Night’s Feste as they both use wit and the illusion of inferiority, Feste with his role as fool and Hamlet with his play for madness, to try and fool their victims in spite of their obvious intelligence- both Feste and Hamlet have a talent for manipulating words and playing with puns much to the consternation of their fellow conversers.

Similarly, Prince Hal in Henry IV (Part 1) pretends to be a delinquent rebel, irresponsible and disobedient to his disappointed further. It’s soon revealed in the play that he only plays the fool so that he can ...

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.... Ironically, it is Sebastian who becomes the imitation- he now has to play Cesario, taking over Viola’s role, and with Feste’s final song foreshadowing unrest, Shakespeare may be hinting at the chaos to come from the false marriage.

The final words of the play are from Feste in the form of a song on wind and rain, “A great while ago the world begun/ With hey, ho, the wind and the rain/ but that’s all one, our play is done/ and we’ll strive to please you every day” (5.1.404-408), an allusion to thunderstorms that started the play and will likewise end it. This seems to be foreshadowing coming unrest, rendering the resolution indefinite and canceling out Orsino’s optimism in the last scene, a possible foreshadowing of the tragedy to come ending the play on a low note instead of the expected hopefulness of a comedy.

Works Cited

Twelfth Night, Shakespeare