Malvolio in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

Malvolio in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

The problem involving Malvolio in Twelfth Night has been known for a

long time but still very difficult. The gist of it is this. A lot of

modern readers or spectators feel that the way in which Malvolio is

treated is extremely bad. We expect him to become the centre of

humour; we know that in the business of comedy, a very puritanical and

rather joyless figure is likely to receive comedic humiliation; but in

this case the humiliation that Malvolio gets, seems protracted and

harsh. The harshness of Malvolio's treatment seemed to also have a

negative effect on the ending, his attitude seemed to cloud the joyful

atmosphere.

We could argue that Malvolio bought this mistreatment on himself and

perhaps deserved it after his bad treatment of the other characters;

In some way Malvolio thought that he had superiority over Feste and as

a result treated him unsympathetically and intolerantly. He also put

Feste down repeatedly.

Malvolio was also a killjoy and during the play ...