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Shakespeare theme of love
Themes in Shakespeare in love
Critical analysis of the characters in the play twelfth night
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“Just the way you are” by Bruno Mars is a love song talking about how his significant other is perfect just the way she is. Twelfth Night is a play with multiple themes, but the most prominent one would be infatuation. The whole play revolves around a love triangle that where each character would argue that there significant other was perfect “Just the way they are.” Each character explains their pure admiration throughout the play. Bruno Mars’s song about looks helps connect the ideas of lust within the play. Mars’s Chorus starts out with “When I see your face, there’s not a thing that I won’t change Cause you’re amazing just the way you are”. This verse, remarks one of the first lines in the play from act one, line 18 where Orsino says …show more content…
Then Cesario sates “’Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white nature’s own sweet and cunning hand laid on”. Meaning that she is stunning and that Mother Nature painted her skin so white and your lips so white”. We can compare Olivia’s beauty to the second Verse. “Oh you know I would never ask you to change if perfect is what you’re searching for then just stay the same”, this verse explains how Cesario thinks how amazing her looks are. Even though Cesario is not attracted to Olivia, she admires her, that she has true beauty and that mother nature made her the way she is and should not change. She has an attractiveness that Orsino, is in love with and since Cesario (who is secretly Viola), is in love with Duke Orsino, she admires how perfect she is. Cesario isn’t jealous though she just in a way looks at her admiration, the same way Mars admires his lover in the …show more content…
“By my troth, the fool has an excellent breast. I had rather than forty shillings I had such a leg, and so sweet a breath to sing, as the fool has”. What Sir Andrew means in this line is that he thinks the fool has a marvelous singing voice, and that he would give forty shillings (money), to have his nice legs and his exquisite voice. We can correlate this to Mars’s song in Verse two when he says “Her laugh, her laugh she hates but I think it’s so sexy, she’s so beautiful and I tell her everyday”. Even though Mars is assumedly referring to a female in this song, and about a laugh we can use this to connect with Sir Andrew complimenting and admiring the fool. Sir Andrew might not think that the fool has a “sexy” singing voice but he does admire it. Sir Andrew also was attracted to his legs, which ties with the verse where Mars thinks the significant other is so attractive and always lets them know. This line in the song and play show together, that either gender can be infatuated with one another when it comes to
Olivia’s public status shows her as a caring and high-class lady, a persona with a stark contrast to her inner self as a bold and tenacious woman. When Olivia pines for Cesario, she takes action and confesses, “But, would you undertake another suit, / I had rather hear you to solicit that/ Than music from the spheres” (3.1.108-110). This confession shows Olivia’s yearning for Cesario to woo her, revealing a bold inner character and desire that doesn’t align with how others perceive her. Another example is after Cesario denies having married her and redirects the topic back to Duke Orsino, Olivia replies, “If it be aught to the old tune, my lord/ It is as fat and fulsome to mine ear/ As howling after music” (5.1.104-106). Olivia dismisses the Duke’s affections and rebukes him as a man would, saying his courting is gross and disgusting. This shows she is not the fragile and polite woman one may perceive her to be, but an abrasive woman who can speak her mind. Olivia breaks out of her social identity as a frail, polite, and proper Elizabethan lady and reveals her true inner character as a strong and empowered woman.
During the weeks leading up to matrimony, Olivia fell madly in love with Cesario, who though looks and sounds just like Sebastian, is truly Viola dressed as a man. Sebastian does not realize this as he meets Olivia for the first time. He is amazed that a woman of her statue and beauty would feel so strong for him and he wastes no time.... ... middle of paper ...
The play opens with Orsino, the Duke of Illyria, expressing his deep love for the Countess Olivia. Meanwhile, the shipwrecked Viola disguises herself as a man and endeavors to enter the Duke’s service. Although she has rejected his suit, the Duke then employs Viola, who takes the name of Cesario, to woo Olivia for him. As the play continues, Cesario falls in love with the Duke, and Olivia falls in love with Cesario, who is really Viola disguised. Maria, Olivia’s servant woman, desires to seek revenge on Malvolio, Olivia’s steward. “To the delight of Sir Toby, Olivia’s uncle, and his friend Sir Andrew, Maria comes up with a plot to drop love letters supposedly written by Olivia in Malvolio’s path. When she does, they observe him, along with Fabian, another servant, as Malvolio falls for the bait. Believing that Olivia loves him, he makes a fool of himself” (Napierkowski 3).
Although Viola might be able to relate to Olivia's grief at first, her love for Orsino is so great that she cannot understand why Olivia would deny him. When Olivia expresses affectio...
As prescient and insightful as this evaluation may seem after considering the outcome of Twelfth Night’s romantic pairings, it reads as a very shallow perspective rather than any sort of wisdom – to the Duke, love is never permanent, lasting, or constant (just like the nature of the tides, it always changes). Duke Orsino has no concern whatsoever for Olivia’s feelings of grief after the loss of her brother – she is merely an object of his desires at the moment, and as his eventual courtship with Viola proves, he is extremely fickle in his affections. (Even before Viola’s disguise became apparent, Orsino showed some signs of attraction to the male Cesario – this raises a few questions about exactly how far his romantic indecisiveness
After Olivia has her very first conversation with Cesario (Viola), where he tries to woo her for Duke Orsino, she immediately falls in love with him. After Cesario leaves her palace, Olivia says to herself ‘Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions and spirit do give thee fivefold blazon. Not too fast; soft, soft. Unless the master were the man. How now? Even so quickly may one catch the plague?’ Here Olivia states that Cesario’s external features are what attract her to him. Her metaphor contains a s...
Sir Toby is tempting to deceive Maria that Sir Andrew is a great man. But his description is full of mockery - he says one thing but means another.
Orsino sends Cesario expresses his affection for Olivia, which Cesario/Viola is not thrilled about. with.
that Olivia has emotional power of nobleman Orsino when in Act I Scene I he declares, "O, she
Because of this confusing love triangle, some of the characters seem to view love as a curse. They also claim to suffer painfully from being in love or from the “pangs” of unrequited love. In Act 1 scene 5, Olivia describes love as a “plague” from which she suffers terribly. In Act 1 scene 1, Orsino depicts love dolefully as an “appetite” that he wants to satisfy and cannot. Another example of the characters not “liking” love is in Act 2 scene 2 when Viola says “My state is desperate for my master’s love.” This quote relates to the violence in Act 5 scene 1 when Orsino threatens to kill Cesario because he thin...
Critics call Twelfth Night one of William Shakespeare’s most poetic and musical plays. Shakespeare writes poetic lines for the major characters, Viola, Orsino, and Olivia, and gives the Fool, and other minor characters, songs to sing throughout the play. The particularly romantic lines of the play make it seem as if the characters are professional poets themselves. Shakespeare also uses the music and poetry in Twelfth Night to foreshadow what is going to happen for the rest of the performance and to reveal major themes in the play. Music and poetry become major characters in the play themselves.
To finish the last 2 lines 966 and 967 the actor must act comforted because of Viola's realization that she will not be obligated to solve this love triangle issue. In addition, the costume will be a brown sports coat with a blue dress shirt underneath, black tights and elegant boots in view of the fact that the setting of this play is the 1600s when men wore elegant dress clothes. Also, the background is a picture of a pathway, with grass on each side and mountains in the distance, considering that Viola has just left Olivia’s house and is on her way back to Orsino's palace and it seems to be a rural community, in the play, where you must walk very far to reach different areas of Illyria, it also appears, in the script, that the Duke's palace stood surrounded by mountains. In addition, the intro music is a tiny clip of an instrumental piano version of Reflection from the movie Mulan, due to, the fact, that the atmosphere makes it seems like it's leading up to a significant disclosure which is Olivia's love for Viola as Cesario but the music is still felicitous since it is not terrible that Olivia loves Cesario instead for Viola and the audience it's
Viola/Ceasario's disguise hides most of her past: the shipwreck, her lost brother, and the fact that she is a woman. Her identity now as a man, is to move on in life and get a job. Her love for Orsino is hidden with her original identity, as though she works for him as his servant. She is a very strong character in the play. "I prithee (and I’ll pay thee bounteously)/ Conceal me what I am, and be my aid/ For such disguise as haply shall become/ The form of my intent. I’ll serve this duke." (1.2.52-55). After the shipwreck and the loss of her brother, Viola decides to move on using a disguise as her shield. Viola’s secret love for Orsino is different than the way Olivia loves Ceasario. Olivia is in lo...
Love however, is the source of much confusion and complication in another of Shakespeare’s comedies, Twelfth Night. Men and women were seen as very different from each other at the time the play was written, they were therefore also treated in very different ways. Because of this Viola conceals her identity and adopts the role of a man, in order to better her safety whilst being alone on the island, and to get a job at Count Orsino’s court. In the play Shakespeare uses the gender confusion he has created from obscuring characters identities to explore the limits of female power and control within courtship, and their dominance within society. Violas frustration surrounding her inability to express her feelings to the Count because she is a woman is an example of the limiting rules of courtship which were upheld at the time. (Aside) ‘yet, a barful strife! Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife.’ Here she is already expressing her anxiety and emotion at being a woman, and having to keep her emotions hidden from those around her. She longs to be able to express her love as a man could, and in her disguise as Cesario she finds an opportunity to vent her feelings for the Count, but concealed as his words and towards Olivia. Viola is unaware of how her words may sound to Olivia because she is aware of their gender boundaries however Olivia isn’t and soon falls for Cesario. Because Olivia is a Lady and head of the household, and especially how she lacks a father figure, she has a lot more freedom in courtship. Duisinberre comments on this saying, ‘...Viola and Beatrice are women set free from their fathers, and their voice is that of the adult world.’ This is seen when Olivia immediately takes the dominant role in her and Cesarios relat...
Viola disguises herself as Cesario, a male eunuch, and goes to work for the Duke Orsino. Unaware that Cesario is not what he seems, the Duke Orsino becomes very friendly with Cesario after just three of having known each other. Unsuccessful in his pursuit of Olivia, Orsino sends Cesario to gain her affection for him because he thinks she will be taken in by Cesario's youth. Viola, dressed as Cesario, falls in love with the duke Orsino but ... ... middle of paper ... ...was but a toy, For the rain it raineth every day' There are other songs sung by Feste which reveal a darker side to the plot such as songs with lines: 'Come away, come away death, And in sad cypress let me be laid'.