Comedies often use deception through appearance as a way to entertain the audience, such as Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night and Billy Wilder’s movie Some Like it Hot. Deception can be intentional, accidental, and can even deceive oneself. Deception is also used to establish the plot of a work of art and create many subplots. Through the use of the theme of deception through appearance, the film Some Like it Hot is a natural descendant of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.
The use of deception often has an intentional purpose, whether it is running away from the mob or playing a character who represents a lost brother. In Twelfth Night the female character Viola portrays a male named Cesario who represents her twin brother whom she thinks died in a recent boat crash. She uses the identity of Cesario as a form of mourning her brother, while also a way in keeping his image alive. When disguised as Cesario, Viola goes to local Duke Orsino where she serves as one of his servants. In the movie Some Like it Hot Joe and Jerry dress as females and join a female band to hide from the mob because they have witnessed the mafia commit murder. Joe and Jerry decide to use the names Josephine and Daphne respectively, to tour with the all-female band Sweet Sue and Her
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Society Syncopators and travel to Miami to escape the mob. Another instance of using deception intentionally is when Joe dresses himself up as Junior, the rich millionaire and son of the Shell Oil Company owner. Joe uses the character Junior to attract Sugar, a member of the female band, who says she adores rich and young men. Just like deception is used intentionally, it is also used accidentally such as when Jerry, as Daphne, accidentally attracts Osgood, an old millionaire.
Osgood falls in love with Jerry thinking he is actually a female. Jerry seems to lose sight of his masculinity when Osgood takes him out one night, and accidentally gets engaged to him. Unintentional deception is also used in Twelfth Night when Olivia starts falling in love with Viola, as Cesario, who was sent to flirt with Olivia for the Duke. Viola is able to charm Olivia easily since they are both women and generally women know what other women like. In these two works of art, accidental deception leads to people around the disguised characters falling in love with
them. Deception through appearance can be used intentionally, accidentally, and to deceive oneself. While Viola uses the appearance of Cesario to mourn, Olivia tries to deceive herself by putting on a veil to seem as if she were mourning. Self-deception is also seen in Twelfth Night when the Clown puts on the appearance of Sir Topas when he is going to talk to Malvolio. Even if Malvolio is not going to see him, the Clown dresses up to get himself into character and pretend he is Sir Topas. The deception of oneself is seen in Some Like it Hot when Jerry starts to believe he is actually a female. He goes out with Osgood for the night, while Joe and Sugar venture to Osgood’s yacht, and Osgood manages to woo him. That night, Osgood asks Jerry, playing Daphne, to marry him and he says yes because he fooled himself into thinking he is a female. The use of deception through appearance in Twelfth Night and Some Like it Hot establishes the plot along with various subplots. These two literary works share the elements of intentional, accidental, and self deception. Additionally, in both novels the deceivers end up unintentionally attracting people to them. The works are intertwined by the use of the theme deception through appearance, making Some Like it Hot a natural descendant of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.
In Twelfth Night, by William Shakespeare, gender identity and alternative sexualities are highlighted through the depiction of different characters and personalities. In the play, Viola disguises herself as a man thereby raising a merry-go-around of relationships that are actually based on a lie rather than actual fact. Viola attracts the attention of Olivia since she thinks that Viola is a man but even more fascinating is the fact that Orsino is attracted to Viola although he thinks that she is a man. In another twist Viola is attracted to Orsino and has fell in love with him although their love cannot exist since Orsino thinks that Viola is a man.
when he gets bored of it then he tells him to stop, just like that.
Andrew is funny, it is not intentional. His faults include a lack of wit, a
Unlike the other characters in Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night", Viola's feelings of love are genuine. She is not mistaken about Orsino's true nature and loves him for who he really is, while the other characters in the play seem to be in love with an illusion. Viola's love for Orsino does not alter during the play, nor is it transferred to another person.
Viola, as Cesario, manages to win the favour of Orsino He truly believes that she is a he. Orsino, still convinced of my majesty, believes that he can win the love of a woman, via a proxy. By having Viola merely read the words he has prepared, he thinks that Olivia will fall immediately in love with him. But while Orsino had his head in the clouds about his love, Viola is attempting to conceal from him, her love for him.
Humor in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night In Twelfth Night we see different types of humour. There is the witty
to get involved in a scuffle, for which Viola is unjustly blamed. Finally Sebastian and Viola are reunited, but only after they have already caused a large amount of chaos and confused everyone. It is only then that everyone begins to discover the extent of Viola's trickery. More disorder is created when Olivia, who Orsino is hopelessly in love with. with, falls for Cesario, who is secretly in love with Orsino.
The Role of the Fool in Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare In English Literature, a fool is a person professionally counterfeits. folly for the entertainment of others. They are always regarded as comic figures, which provide mediation under tensional circumstances. As Twelfth Night is an atypical romantic comedy, the jester is not the.
to address Viola as if she were male, he says, "Boy, thou hast said to
Twelfth Night consists of a large number of love triangles, however many characters are too indulged in love that they are blind to the untrue, and the weakness of their relationship, they are deceived by themselves and many people around them ( ex. Malvolio is tricked by Sir Andrew, Feste ,Sir Toby and Maria),but there are certain incidents where the love is true and two characters feel very strongly about one another. In the play, Viola and Orsino have the most significant relationship. The way they interact with each other causes the complexity on which the play is all about, their relationship turns from strangers to friends then lovers .In the First Act Viola is not honest with Orsino because she disguises herself as a male servant named Cesario in order to get closer to the duke. Orsino. Orsino quickly trusts Cesario and sends him to Olivia to declare Orsinos Love for her, the girl he most dearly loves. This quick bond is the fast example of their relationship. At the beginning of the play, Viola thinks her brother (Sebastian) is dead (after they’re deadly boat crash, where they get separated) when actually he is alive and thinks she is dead, Viola always seems to have a part missing from her which shows her bond with Sebastian is strong, and a part of her but in a brotherly/sisterly way rather than a proper relationship like viola and orsino, At the end of the play they meet and both fall in love , Viola with Orsino and Sebastian with Olivia.
Twelfth Night or What You Will is one of Shakespeare’s most famous comedies. It has been performed hundreds of times and adapted into a number of modern films. The main plot of the play follows Viola, a girl who is rescued from a shipwreck and enters into the service of the Duke Orsino disguised as a man. Rising quickly in his estimation, Viola begins delivering messages of love on his behalf to Olivia, a noble woman who has no interest in Orsino’s advances. Over the course of the play Olivia falls in love with the disguised Viola, Viola falls in love with Orsino, and Viola’s twin brother Sebastian, who supposedly died in the shipwreck, returns. Following Sebastian’s return the twins are mistaken for each other, leading to both misunderstanding and marriage in the final scenes of the play. Alongside the main plot of Twelfth Night is an almost equally prominent subplot involving Malvolio, a servant of Olivia, who falls in love with her and who falls prey to a prank planned by the other members of the household who despise his abhorrence of fun. In the article “The Design of Twelfth Night” by L.G. Salingar, Salingar examines the plot and structure of the play and addresses the significance of the subplot. The purpose of this essay is to examine both evidence from the play and articles from other authors, with a focus on Salingar, who have written on the subject in order to determine the purpose of the subplot. In his article, Salingar comes to the conclusion that the purpose of the subplot is to provide a comic mirror of the main plot while amplifying the main themes of delusion, misrule and festivity. Salingar presents a solid argument, however he has neglected another lesser but significant element of the sub-plot which illustrate...
Ultimately, Viola gives herself a choice, either enter Illyria as a woman or disguise herself as a male named Cesario where she will live in servitude to the duke. In giving her self a choice, Viola transcends the traditional understanding of gender but also love from a humanistic perspective by denying her societal expectations as a woman in the 1600s. At the beginning of the play Viola decides to “conceal” her gender under her own pretenses that “For such disguise as haply shall become the form of my intent” (Shakespeare 1192). Her reasoning and determinism for disguising herself as a man helps revolutionizes the concept of love through Viola’s character development throughout the play where she “falls in love” with the character of Orensio, whom is the duke for which she serves. While, Viola could never determine that her “fate” was to fall in love with Orsensio, her choice at the beginning of act one helped determine her unorthodox path that lead her to not only fall in love with someone beyond her social class as a disguised boy but also define a different method of marriage in a 1600s
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...
Throughout Twelfth Night, disguise and mistaken identity works as a catalyst for confusion and disorder which consistently contributes towards the dramatic comic genre of the play. Many characters in Twelfth Night assume disguises, beginning with Viola, who disguises herself as a man in order to serve Orsino, the Duke. By dressing his protagonist in male garments, Shakespeare creates ongoing sexual confusion with characters, which include Olivia, Viola and Orsino, who create a ‘love triangle’ between them. Implicitly, there is homoerotic subtext here: Olivia is in love with a woman, despite believing her to be a man, and Orsino often comments on Cesario’s beauty, which implies that he is attracted to Viola even before her male disguise is removed. However, even subsequent to the revealing of Viola’s true identity, Orsino’s declares his love to Viola implying that he enjoys lengthening the pretence of Vio...
Function of Disguise in Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is a play based around disguise in the form of deception and becoming someone different. In Twelfth Night, disguise takes many different shapes from physical disguise to mental disguise. Disguise is one of the main topics of the play and helps to create the plot. It brings in confusion and comedy as well as the darker and sadder side of the play which is disguised as fun and happiness. Disguise is evident from the very beginning of the play.