Love and Deceit in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night

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Love, quite an indescribable word, has such an impact upon people as to cause deceit and overall confusion in every relationship. In Will Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night or What You Will, Shakespeare attempts to have a great balance of both cruelty and joy while also containing comical qualities to this romantic play. Throughout Twelfth Night or What You Will, Shakespeare uses puns with characters such as Viola to cross-dress and change their identity. "She attires herself in the disguise of a page, as the best protection against uncivil comments, till she can gain some tidings of her brother" (O'Connor) while Viola is disguising herself as a boy, she falls in love with her employer, Duke Orsino. Viola cannot express her feelings for Orsino because Orsino thinks that Viola is a man. “She is engaged in the service of the Duke, whom she finds "fancy-sick" for the love of Olivia" (O'Connor). Shakespeare demonstrates that love is capable of causing misery by creating a love triangle in which Olivia falls in love with Viola/Cesario who is constantly bothered by Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Malvolio, who both love Olivia.

During the seventeenth century when Shakespeare was writing this play, homosexuality was looked down upon by society. However, this does not mean that Shakespeare could not shed any humor into the subject of homoerotism in Twelfth Night or What You Will. It is evident that Shakespeare means to make fun of gender with his characters such as Orsino and Olivia falling in love with Cesario, not knowing that Cesario is actually a female. "As Orsino's proxy, Viola is sent to Olivia with love letters. Viola refuses to budge until she is let in to see Olivia" (Pressley). Earlier in the play, Viola while dressed as Cesario, ha...

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Shakespeare, William. Twelfth Night Or What You Will. N.p.: Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount, 1623. Print.

“Twelfth Night; Or, What You Will” [“Twelfth Night; Or, What You Will”]. bardweb.net. J.M.Pressley, n.d. Web. 22 Feb. 2014. .

Williams, Porter, Jr. “Mistakes in Twelfth Night and Their Resolution: A Study in Some Relationships of Plot and Theme” [“Mistakes in Twelfth Night and Their Resolution: A Study in Some Relationships of Plot and Theme”]. Modern Language Association [New York City] June 1961, Volume 76: 193-99. www.jstor.com. Web. 5 Feb. 2014. .

Woodbridge, Linda. “Gender Ambiguity and Desire in Twelfth Night” [“Gender Ambiguity and Desire in Twelfth Night”]. Women and the English Renaissance: Literature and the Nature of Womankind: n. pag. Print.

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