Twelfth Night Essay

Class is a prominent theme within both Twelfth Night and The Rivals as both plays present the class divide between the characters. Often some of the characters act above their class position, and treat others of the same class as though they are below them, either in anger, or in a sense of false authority. The most notable of these are, perhaps, Malvolio from Twelfth Night, as he often treats his superiors as his inferiors or Lucy in The Rivals, who acts simple, following the connotations of her class, but is actually well-educated and smart for someone of her class. Shakespeare is known for his comedies showing similarities between high-class characters such as Orsino and Olivia who portray love to different extremities, and then there are the characters who defy class, much like Feste, who constantly upsets the social class order by mocking those of a higher class than him.

The stage directions at the beginning Act 1 Scene 1 of ‘Enter Orsino, Duke of Illyria, Curio, and other Lords’ secures this theory of wealth as it is confirmed by the noun Duke, which within Twelfth Night is the highest position of class, and that he is able to afford workers of a higher class as Curio is referred to as

Malvolio and the way he acts above his station. We see elements of this in Act 1 Scene 5 when Malvolio chides Feste using the offensive vocative ‘barren rascal’ with the pre-modifying adjective ‘barren’ suggesting Malvolio has nothing about him of any worth or quality. This is obviously an insult towards his lack of intelligence. Lady Olivia tells him he is ‘sick of self-love’, which uses sibilant alliteration to emphasise using the compound noun self-love in the sense of the clause would suggest vanity and arrogance rather than taking care of one’s