An emotional roller coaster, between three people, also known as Twelfth night. In the play Twelfth Night by William shakespeare, one of his famous comedies, is based on a simple love triangle. Not your ordinary love triangle though, when Viola one of the main characters has shipwrecked on the coast of Illyria and decides to disguise herself as a boy named Cesario that leads to many love complications. When Voila arrives to Orsino’s court for a job she is sent to Olivia, to give a message of his love. However in the soliloquy, III.i.152-172, Olivia ends up confessing her love to Viola disguised as Cesario that almost starts the whole love triangle. Olivia, in this soliloquy proclaims her love for Viola who disguised herself as Cesario, and …show more content…
Since Olivia is in upper class she speaks, more with poetic elements with iambic pentameter, than the common lower class language. From start to finish the theme of the complex love triangle, has been repeated through, and just so happens to be displayed in this verse. For instance, “I love thee so, that, maugre all thy pride,/ Nor wit nor reason can my passion hide” (III.i.159-160).Olivia proclaims her love for Cesario(Viola) in this soliloquy, that makes her vulnerable, bold, and fearless. Olivia shows her vulnerability here because she throws herself out in the open for Cesario. She tells him that her love can not hide any longer, and exposes her emotions to a “man” she just met. Then after she was rejected by Cesario, she tells him to stop by anytime, making her expose herself even more. Yet Oliva proves to be bold and fearless at the same time. She shows more of a fearless side of herself, by exposing herself of her emotions and throwing herself out at Cesiro. She took a risk of exposing her emotions to someone, but this helps the comedy of the play. This fearlessness and boldness Olivia shows tends to the complex love triangle, the theme. Olivia more or less creates the love triangle by proclaiming her love, because she is supposed to love Orsino, but instead loves Cesario. Shakespeare purpose or impact for this soliloquy, is the play is solely based on a love triangle. So
The central theme of the play is romance. The characters all experience love, in one way or another, whether it be unrequited or shared between more than one person. The plot is intricately woven, sometimes confusingly so, between twists and turns throughout the multiple acts, but it never strays too far from the subject of adoration. Despite the hardships, misperception and deceit the characters experience, six individuals are brought together in the name of holy matrimony in three distinct nuptials. Sebastian, the twin brother of Viola who was lost at sea after a shipwreck, and Lady Olivia are the first to marry, but things are not as they seem.
Viola continues to go back and forth between the Duke and Olivia but Oliva falls in love with Viola’s male alias Cesario. The three go on with this love triangle throughout the book using a romantic feel to keep the viewers engaged. Until the end of the story when Viola’s twin brother shows up, is mistaken for Cesario, and marries Olivia. In the end the Duke finds out the Cesario is actually a women and not a boy and they end up marring each other. Olivia is relieved she married a man and not a woman and they are all happy in the end. Shakespeare never uses sex appeal, but uses romance to appeal to his audience.
Viola quickly falls in love with Duke Orsino after meeting him, but she is not able to express her true feelings of love for two different reasons. First, Orsino is lusting after Olivia, so he is not open to the feelings of others. Orsino is so in love with Olivia’s beauty that he had built a wall of emotion around himself, and Viola was not able to penetrate this wall. More importantly, Viola is not Viola to Orsino; she is Cesario, who, disguised as a man, served Orsino as a eunuch. Although she greatly loves Orsino, Viola cannot openly express this love because she was invisible to him. If Viola does let the truth come out, Orsino will still not be able to love her because he is solely focused on gaining Olivia’s affection. Orsino does not love Viola because he does not see her as a woman in love with him but as a faithful servant, so Viola and her love for Orsino go unnoticed as Orsino delegates Viola to woo Olivia for himself. Viola, wishing she was the one whom Orsino loved, was deeply saddened by this: “I’ll do my best/To woo your lady: yet, a barful strife!/Whoe’er I woo, myself would be his wife” (Act I, Scene IV). Orsino made Viola his messenger to court Olivia, but Viola wishes she was the one whom Orsino was courting. Similarly to how Orsino is blinded by his infatuation with Olivia, the boy whom Swift is in love with is blinded by his love
Cesario is actually shipwrecked Viola, believing her brother had drowned. dressed up as a man to work for Orsino. Viola consequently falls in. love with Orsino, who believes her to be Cesario. In addition, the adage is a remark.
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...
In Twelfth Night, the character Viola, who cross-dresses as a man named Cesario, is used to show how true love is capable of breaking gender barriers. Viola is an amiable character who has no severe faults. The audience can clearly detect that Viola's love is the purest because unlike Orsino and Olivia, her character's love is not narcissistic and does not jump from one person to the next. In other words, her actions are motivated by deep and abiding passion rather than whimsical choices. Viola's main problem, however, throughout the play is one of identity. Because of her costume, she must be both herself and Cesario. Thi...
When Orsino sends Viola-Cesario to woo Olivia in his name, he does not think any more of it. When Viola-Cesario goes to woo Olivia for her master Orsino, she starts to woo her using the first person, referring to ‘me’ and ‘I’, under Olivia’s request. She continues using the first person throughout this wooing, where she tells of Olivia’s beauty and her person through her perspective instead of Orsino’s. This wooing becomes vital to the plot and the theme of love throughout the play, because this wooing causes Olivia to fall in love with Viola-Cesario instead of the Duke Orsino. This could be due to the request of Olivia asking Viola-Cesario to “tell me your mind.” (Shakespeare I.v.204) When Viola-Cesario woos Olivia, Olivia become smitten with Viola in her disguise of Cesario, while Viola believes that her wooing helps her master Orsino. This wooing becomes essential to the theme of love because Olivia falls for Viola-Cesario; however, the pain from this love does not come until the end when Viola’s identity is revealed. Olivia is then left puzzled and upset because she believed that Cesario was a real person, when in fact, it was Viola playing Cesario and she has married Viola’s twin brother Sebastian. All of the confusion causes the pain that Olivia feels from her love of Cesario because the Cesario that had told her all of the beautiful things was not the man she married and the one who told her all of those things turned out to be a woman. Along with this pain from the realization, she continues to feels a slight pain throughout the play because Cesario will not accept her love and pushes her away, ironically, like she pushes Orsino’s love or her away.
After Duke Orsino asks Cesario (disguised Viola) to make Olivia love him, although she had stated that she would not marry for seven years due to her sadness from her brother’s death, Cesario tells him “I’ll do my best to woo your lady.” Then Viola tells the audience “(Aside) yet, a barful strife—Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife,” meaning that she has to convince another woman to love the man she loves. The exchange of words in this scene exemplifies dramatic irony since the reader now knows that a love road that connects Duke Orsino, Viola, and Olivia has formed while Orsino is clueless about the situation. Situational irony can also be withdrawn from this conversation because it is shocking that Viola is in love with Orsino. Viola’s sudden love for Orsino illustrates a universal truth about life that sometimes people fall in love too quickly without thinking far ahead.
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.
In Twelfth Night the relationships are anything but romantic. Shakespeare writes from the male point of view which implies an un-easy split between love and physical charm. In Twelfth night the romance is falsely produced by selfish desire. Duke Orsino and Viola stand out from the other relationships. By questioning the relationships between the other couples, Shakespeare highlights the true love between Viola and Orsino and the fake relationship of Malvolio and Olivia which is truly based on Malvolio’s desire of a higher status , despite his status and his personality , Malvolio tries to impress Olivia by dressing up in ridiculous clothes , which does far from his aim , and repulses Olivia.
She falls in love with Orsino, and in turn, Olivia falls in love with Cesario, completing the full love triangle. In The Twelfth Night, Shakespeare implements the futile romantic love of the nobility to demonstrate that romantic
Although there were also hate, revenge and ignorance happening throughout the play, those minor themes are all either build-ups or consequences of illustrating the complicated “love” between the characters. Throughout the play, Shakespeare has demonstrated an interesting and ironic love relationship between the characters, through the relationships around Viola, around Olivia and last but not least, the relationships around Orsino.
She goes on to tell Olivia “ By innocence I swear, and by my youth, I have one heart, one bosom and one truth, And that no woman has, nor never none shall mistress be of it, save I alone” (3.1.165-168). This once again echos what Cesario is trying to say before to Olivia. His heart, or more correctly Viola’s heart, will only every belong to Orsino. She has fallen in love with an imaginary boy. It holds slight double meaning being that since he actually is a women no other women will have his heart and that is also true because another man also already has won Viola’s heart.
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...