Through comedy, Shakespeare bends the rules for the gender in the play Twelfth Night. Viola and Olivia are two women who complicate the relationships they have. Viola dresses as a man who she calls Cesario, while her double life has her learning the roles of both male and female. She meets Olivia who struggles with her own relationships and looks to Viola as Cesario for help. Both these women go through the same struggles of the gender roles but because Shakespeare created to Viola play both male and female her roles allow her to push the role of the female gender in society. These roles that they have are heteronormative verse binary gender, use of male and female communication, male power verse female power, relationships and identity. …show more content…
Viola is placed in a situation where she is working for a man, Orsino who is in love with Olivia while viola is dressed as a man her female self-starts to fall for Orsino while her male self has Olivia falling for Cesario.
The power that Viola has in this love triangle shows the two genders are hard to balance in the citation at hand because she knows who she is but people cannot see her for who she truly is because she is playing a binary role. When Viola and Olivia meet, they are both going through the same mourning of losing their bothers. The reason for their meeting is because of Orsino who wants Cesario to read a letter to Olivia. After reading this letter from Orsino, Olivia ask the question “how does he love me?” (1.5.256) as Viola goes on and tells her how, Olivia then asks how would you love me. Viola states love should be shouted and you don’t rest when in love. You can argue in this scene you get the more feminine side of Viola by her use of communication and her emotions that are shown in the
text. The use of Viola’s use of communication helps her male role become stronger when it comes to his role as a messenger. Olivia sees Cesario in a different light then how she sees Orsino. Cesario is a respectful well-mannered man who will listen to Viola and what she wants. Their use of female communication through the texts show the difference between the male and female roles. Men are more problem solvers they want they want and they will try to get what they want without having to deal with the problem. When lord Orsino doesn’t go to see Olivia because he believes she will not allow him to see her. “Therefore, good youth, address thy gait unto her. Be not denied access…” (1.4.16-17) And while Orsino believes he is sending Viola to give the message like a man, deliver and have no conversations. Violas using what she knows best female to female communication allows for Olivia to fall in love with Viola because of the way Viola speaks and addresses the situation of love. The way Cesario speaks to Olivia shows the opposite idea of the traditional man and how he should behave conversation, this allows for Olivia to be more forward in their conversation and allows her to be less flirty and more herself. The use of love in the play helps show the true power a woman has in the relations of men and women. When Viola leaves the first scene her and Olivia meet you get the idea from Olivia that she believes Viola is this wonderful man that will truly love a woman. But it makes sense that Viola spoke that way towards Olivia because Viola is a woman and she understands what a woman wants in that moment. Viola uses the power of man and women
The movie She's the Man shows much of the general idea of the original Shakespearean book, the twelfth night. It also, illustrates the change in feminine roles in the community and society at large, the main theme of the movie being feminism. In Shakespearean era and time, the important, recognizable and powerful positions in the society were taken by men and therefore Viola in the twelfth night disguises herself as a eunuch in order to get close to the Olivia, the countess and the
The play Twelfth Night, or What You Will by William Shakespeare is a 1601 comedy that has proven to be the source of experimentation in gender casting in the early twenty-first century due to its portrayal of gender in love and identity. The play centrally revolves around the love triangle between Orsino, Olivia, and Viola. However, Olivia and Orsino both believe Viola is a boy named Cesario. Ironically, only male actors were on the stage in Shakespeare’s time. This means that Olivia, Viola, and other female characters were played by young boys who still had voices at higher pitches than older males.
In William Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night, the use of mistaken identity and role reversal communicates that gender roles and social class are constructed illusions that trick people into having unrealistic expectations about how they are supposed behave.Viola crossdressing as Cesario in the play challenges traditional views of how a woman of her status should act.The differences between the accepted clothing for an individual emphasizes gender roles and social hierarchy in society. During the Renaissance, “ the idea of two genders, one subordinate to the other, provided a key element in its hierarchical view of the social order and to buttress its gendered division of labor” (Howard 423).
In Twelfth Night, by William Shakespeare, gender identity and alternative sexualities are highlighted through the depiction of different characters and personalities. In the play, Viola disguises herself as a man thereby raising a merry-go-around of relationships that are actually based on a lie rather than actual fact. Viola attracts the attention of Olivia since she thinks that Viola is a man but even more fascinating is the fact that Orsino is attracted to Viola although he thinks that she is a man. In another twist Viola is attracted to Orsino and has fell in love with him although their love cannot exist since Orsino thinks that Viola is a man.
Viola and Beatrice both take on men's roles, Viola that of a manservant and Beatrice that of the perpetual bachelor and the clown: "I was born to speak all mirth and no matter," she says to Don Pedro [II.i.343-4]. They appear to be actors and manipulators, much more so than their female predecessors, who are mostly reactive and manipulated, such as Hermia, Helena, Titania, and Gertrude. None of these women seemed in charge of her own destiny, but tricked by the schemes of men and later scorned or humiliated as a result of male machinations. Viola and Beatrice, although they both seem fiercely independent and comfortable in a man's world, reveal themselves to have only the trappings of manhood, and not its full capacity for action. They are undone by unrequited love, made desperately unhappy by their inability to woo the man of their choosing. In the end, it is only coincidence and the plotting of other characters that bring the true nature of their affections into the open and thus force the plays to their respective matrimonial conclusions.
Born on approximately April 23, 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, William Shakespeare is considered by many to have been the greatest writer the English language has ever known. His literary legacy included 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and five major poems. Among his many plays is the notable, Twelfth Night, a romantic comedy, placed in a festive atmosphere in which three couples are brought together happily.
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...
"Twelfth Night" consists of many love triangles, however many of the characters who are tangled up in the web of love are blind to see that their emotions and feelings toward other characters are untrue. They are being deceived by themselves and/or the others around them. There are certain instances in the play where the emotion of love is true, and the two people involved feel very strongly toward one another. Viola's love for Orsino is a great example of true love. Although she is pretending to be a man and is virtually unknown in Illyria, she hopes to win the Duke's heart. In act 1, scene 4, Viola let's out her true feelings for Cesario, "yet a barful strife! Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife (1)." That statement becomes true when Viola reveals her true identity. Viola and Orsino had a very good friendship, and making the switch to husband and wife was easy. Viola was caught up in another true love scenario, only this time she was on the receiving end, and things didn't work out so smoothly. During her attempts to court Olivia for Orsino, Olivia grew to love Cesario. Viola was now caught in a terrible situation and there was only one way out, but that would jeopardize her chances with Orsino. It's amazing that Olivia could fall for a woman dressed as a man, but because Viola knew what women like to hear, her words won Olivia's heart. The next case of true love is on a less intimate and romantic scale, and more family oriented. Viola and Sebastian's love for one another is a bond felt by all siblings. Through their times of sorrow and mourning for each of their apparent deaths they still loved each other. They believed deep down that maybe someway or by some miracle that each of them was still alive and well.
The protagonist of Twelfth Night is Viola, the central character in the play, a likeable, resourceful and attractive young woman. At the beginning of the story, Viola is shipwrecked with her brother Sabatian. Fearing that Sebastian is dead, she decides to dress like a man in order to get a job with Duke Orsino. Viola, in love with Orsino, is asked by Orsino to court a woman for him. She finds herself in an unusual love triangle.
In Hamlet, gender plays a huge role in the assumed capability of people. Queen Gertrude had to remarry instead of rule the kingdom by herself. If she wouldn’t have gotten remarried, it would have been likely that her kingdom would have been usurped by a chauvinist male ruler; who felt that women couldn’t rule a kingdom.
Today, actors have a new way of living. They do not realize how different their lives would have been if they lived during the Greek and Elizabethan time period. Acting has changed throughout history based off of gender roles, how the performances were conducted, and the social status of the actors and audience.
Within high school theater, this is a reoccurring problem that is common throughout the United States. Many high schools have a lot of girls but little to no boys. In college and professional theater, however, this is the opposite, they have a surplus of boys but are lacking in girls.
Despite many cases of disguise in the play, the one that sparks the most trouble, and is of most importance to the plot, is Viola pretending to be a man named Cesario. Her decision to pretend she is a man when she is left stranded on the foreign land of Illyria truly shows how men were the dominate gender at the time. It proves that if Viola wanted to succeed in anyway on Illyria, she had to be a man. Once Viola establ...
Gender is one of the most obvious and much-discussed topics in the play. Twelfth Night is one of Shakespeare’s transvestite comedies. In this play, Viola also known as Cesario in the play disguises herself as a man. It is a little unclear as to why she disguises herself as Cesario. There are a couple possibilities for this. One of them could be that, Viola disguises herself as a man because she is too afraid to face the world all-alone by herself as her twin brother Sebastian seemingly died in a shipwreck at the beginning of the play:
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...