In the play, Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare, Feste's role in the play extends beyond providing comic relief. Feste is Lady Olivia's court jester, and is characterized as being wise, witty, foolish, and humorous. However, in the play Feste also plays the function as the play’s wise observer. As the result of Feste not being involved in any of the play's conflicts, compared to other characters. He also gives useful advice to aid characters in the novel. Feste observes the foolishness of the other characters and says that Olivia is foolish for wasting her youth and beauty by prolonging her mourning over her brother, especially when she believes his soul to be in heaven. We see in Feste's lines as he reunites with Olivia and is first introduced in the novel, how he proves her foolishness, If that this simple syllogism will serve so; if it will not, what remedy. As there is no true cuckold but calamity, so beauty’s a flower. The lady bade take away the fool, therefore I say again, take her away... The more fool, madonna, to mourn for your brother's soul being in heaven. Take away the fool, gentlemen. (I.v.46-65) …show more content…
His passage from the play, indicates how Feste shows Olivia's foolishness for wasting her youth, and says she is the fool when he says “Take away the fool gentleman.” Even when Olivia says she knows her brother is in heaven, Feste proves his point of her being foolish. By the cause of her knowing her brother is in heaven, then she should not mourn and throw away her youth for her brother, and instead live her life. Feste also observes how fickle Orsino is. We see Feste claiming Orsino to be fickle when Feste is at Orsino's palace and sings for Orsino. Feste
... Feste uses his ability to judge situations to bide his time and exact the perfect revenge on Malvolio by slipping seamlessly into Sir Toby’s ploy. All of this reveals Feste’s inward character as wise and witty, as opposed to his social repute as an uneducated lower-class fool. Olivia, Sir Toby, and Feste are all vastly different from the way others view them. Their social identities put up guises and put expectations on them to act in a certain way.
... He speaks to Viola, before Feste, Olivia’s Jester, sings to signal the ending. “Cesario, come – For so you shall be while you are a man; But when in other habits you are seen Orsino’s mistress and his fancy’s queen.” The characters in Twelfth Night each play an important and specific role, especially when it comes to interfering or setting fate for romantic interests.
...sh; his practical joke against Malvolio helps to prevent Malvolio's continued vanity. Feste's wit also helps the audience to understand better some of the other characters in the play. He highlights the foolishness of Orsino as he wallows in his love for Olivia; he shows how pompous Malvolio is and makes a fool of him; and he shows how Olivia is over-reacting to her brother's death. Feste becomes a sort of commentator for the play, as he does not ally himself with any of the other characters so he notices and comments on them more than any of the others.
Shakespeare’s jester, Feste not only provides humor but gives intelligent
One of the most idealistic and influential classical concepts was the Elizabethan Chain of Being. The idea behind the Chain was that everything in existence had its place in the hierarchy of the universe. An object's place depended on its spirit-to-matter ratio: the more spirit and less matter something had, the higher up the chain it was. At the bottom were various inanimate objects like stones, metals, and the four elements, i.e. earth, water, air, and fire. Higher up were members of the vegetative class, like flowers and trees. Next came animals, then humans, and then angels. At the top sat God. Within each section, there were subsections, each with its own hierarchy. For example, among humans, the king was above the noble, the noble above the soldier, and the soldier above the servant, and he above beggars and fools. The fool in Elizabethan literature was used to provide a topic or theme for mediation, or he could be used purely used for comic relief. In William Shakespeare's comedy, Twelfth Night, Feste the Fool was not the only actor who played a fool. In fact, Feste was one of the smartest and wittiest characters in the comedy, one who seemed to be able to withdraw from the scene and provide insightful commentary, much like the Greek chorus. When Olivia's called Feste was an allowed fool, meaning he was a critic to speak the truth of the people around him, it put him in a unique position. In some cases, he acted as a teacher through puns and humor. He also revealed that some other characters that were higher up in the chain than he was were not as smart as their place suggested. In Twelfth Night, Feste the Fool ironically acts as Shakespeare’s megaphone, presenting the playwright’s message that the Chain of Being is n...
Feste, the fool character in Twelfth Night, in many ways represents a playwright figure, and embodies the reach and tools of the theater. He criticizes, manipulates and entertains the other characters while causing them to reflect on their life situations, which is similar to the way a playwright such as Shakespeare interacts with his audience. Furthermore, more so than the other characters in the play he accomplishes this in a highly performative way, involving song and clever wordplay that must be decoded, and is thus particularly reflective of the mechanisms at the command of the playwright. Feste is a representation of the medieval fool figure, who is empowered by his low status and able to speak the truth of the kingdom. A playwright speaks the truth by using actors and fictional characters, who are in a parallel low status in comparison to the audience, as they lack the dimensionality of real people. Thus, the role Feste plays in the lives of the characters in the play resembles the role the play itself plays in the lives of the audience watching the performance. This essay will explore this comparison first by analyzing similarities between the way in which Feste interacts with other characters and the way the playwright interact with the audience, and then focus on the similarities between the aims and content of these interactions.
Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night revolves around a love triangle that continually makes twists and turns like a rollercoaster, throwing emotions here and there. The characters love each another, but the common love is absent throughout the play. Then, another character enters the scene and not only confuses everyone, bringing with him chaos that presents many different themes throughout the play. Along, with the emotional turmoil, each character has their own issues and difficulties that they must take care of, but that also affect other characters at same time. Richard Henze refers to the play as a “vindication of romance, a depreciation of romance…a ‘subtle portrayal of the psychology of love,’ a play about ‘unrequital in love’…a moral comedy about the surfeiting of the appetite…” (Henze 4) On the other hand, L. G. Salingar questions all of the remarks about Twelfth Night, asking if the remarks about the play are actually true. Shakespeare touches on the theme of love, but emphases the pain and suffering it causes a person, showing a dark and dismal side to a usually happy thought.
tries to get Olivia away from Feste when he says the line, and he is
scene 5 Feste begins with a pun “he that is well hanged in this world
a fool that the Lady Olivia's father took much pleasure in. " Feste is "an allowed fool", meaning he is a licensed, privileged critic. to speak the truth of the people around him. In Act 1 Sc5, Olivia is. proved to be a true fool by Feste when she was asked what she was.
With Feste's help, we are able to attain a better understanding of the other characters in the play- revealing their true personalities, which are sometimes unseen, not only by us, the audience, but also by the characters themselves. He shows Olivia how unrealistic and excessive her mourning for her brother's death has been, he tells Orsino how foolish he is for languishing in a mood of love-sick melancholy for Olivia and points out how mercurial his personality is, and he makes a fool out of the pompous Malvolio. "Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun- it shines everywhere" says Feste.
The perfect lives that make up the routine of the Illyrian citizens portrays a society in which enjoyment, and personal gain are held in utmost priority. Shakespeares mocks the passivity of the Illyrian lifestyle to explain to the audience that excess of such festivity has negative side effects such as ego and lack of true love. He expresses that the pursuit of expression and truth in itself invokes enjoyment. Sir Aguecheek mirrors the uncertainty of a person through lack of self-confidence and the desire to openly reveal his true self when lamenting “Is it a world to hide virtues in?” (1.3.131). While uncovering aesthetic and emotional mysteries, the Illyrians find that disport restrains them from actual enjoyment and love. The play follows the audience to motivate them towards dissemination of feelings and expression of passion as a “locus of growth and self discovery” (Logan 223) and to obtain true happiness by ridding themselves of excessive, meaningless fun.
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...
...one of the antics at the start play to woo Olivia succeed for Orsino and Viola’s initial plan in the beginning does not blossom. This line concludes the part of Feste’s song in which he is giving a synopsis of the play. The last two stanzas are addressed to the audience and Feste thanks them.
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...