In the comedy Twelfth Night written by William Shakespeare many of the characters experience emotional pain. The pain that a character name Olivia experiences is the death of her brother, causing her to mourn. Malvolio who is Olivia's steward is involved with emotional pain caused by humiliation, which occurs more than once in this play. Lastly, a great deal of characters battle with the feeling of unrequited love. Even though Shakespeare wrote this as a comedy, there was still a mass amount of emotional pain throughout.
Early on in this play Shakespeare introduces us to a character named Olivia. Olivia is an extremely rich countess, who is still heartbroken from losing her brother over the plague.
Sir Toby: “What a plague means my niece to take the death of her brother thus? I am sure cares an enemy of life”. (Act 1, Scene 3, Lines 1-2)
From this line Shakespeare lets the reader/audience know that Sir Toby is her uncle, because he refers to Olivia has his niece. The reader/audience will also gather that Olivia’s brother died from the plague.
Feste: “Good madonna, why mourn’st thou?”
Olivia: “Good fool, for my brothers death”. (Act 1, Scene 5, Lines 59-60)
Feste is a jester her serves Olivia and is brought into this scene to cheer her up, but from this quotes it shows proof she is mourning her brother.
Valentine: “The element of itself, till seven years heat,
Shall not not behold her face at ample view,
But like a cloistress, she will veiled walk,
And water once a day her chamber round
With eye-offending brine: all this to season
A brother’s dead love, which she would keep fresh
And lasting, in her sad remembrance”. (Act 1, Scene 1, 26-32)
Valentine was not aloud to see Olivia, but she was told that Olivia was going to m...
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...ino. Viola is Orsino’s messenger, and has to spend time telling Olivia how much Orsino love her; but in reality she is heartbroken because the man she loves, loves someone else. On many occasions Viola cleverly hints to Orsino she loves him, but he never really understands.
Viola: “Too well what love women to men may owe. In faith, they are as true of heart as we. My father had a daughter loved a man, As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman,I should your lordship” (Act 2, Scene 4, Lines 102-107).
Viola is really saying that she knows the way women can love men. She also says “My father had a daughter who loved a man”, since she is known as Cesario who is a boy Orsino does not realize that the daughter is really her, and the man is Orsino.
Just imagine how much pain these characters are going through. They each love someone and can not be loved back.
During the weeks leading up to matrimony, Olivia fell madly in love with Cesario, who though looks and sounds just like Sebastian, is truly Viola dressed as a man. Sebastian does not realize this as he meets Olivia for the first time. He is amazed that a woman of her statue and beauty would feel so strong for him and he wastes no time.... ... middle of paper ...
And of the Queen’s punishment as it goes on throughout the play, there can be no doubt either. Her love for Hamlet, her grief, the woes that come so fast that one treads upon the heel of another, her consciousness of wrong-doing, her final dismay are those also of one whose soul has become alienated from God by sin.(146)
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...
Her attraction for Cesario comes from his gentlemanlike and submissive behavior that she immediately recognizes. Though Orsino is not portrayed as necessarily “masculine” throughout the play, it is the overall declared gender roles in her society that make her feel that she would be dominated in the relationship. The time period of the play also may be a factor in her decisions throughout the play. Many may argue that, after Cesario admits that she is a woman, Olivia’s feelings for Cesario diminish because she is only attracted to men. However, after finding that Cesario is, indeed, a woman, Olivia immediately refrains from showing much emotion and, therefore, never responds in a way to deny her love for Cesario. This reluctant silence is due to the fact that in her society the idea of her being in love with a woman is something that is generally left as unspoken, since it is considered unnatural. According to Bruce R. Smith, a common editor and Shakespeare lecturer, during the Renaissance period, there was no definition to identify a man or woman that was attracted to the same sex (Smith 11-12). Therefore, Olivia has no way of describing or understanding her personal situation, because this issue had never been raised in her society. This, not the lack of attraction to women, is what keeps Olivia from pursuing Viola. Certain aspects of Olivia’s emotions after the discovery of
If you mean well,/ Now go with me and with this holy man/ Into the chantry by. There, before him/ And underneath that consecrated roof,/ Plight me the full assurance of your faith,/ That my most jealous and too doubtful soul/ May live at peace. He shall conceal it/ Whiles you are willing it shall come to note,/ What time we will our celebration keep/ According to my birth. What do you say” (Act IV. iii)? This quote from the play is important because it is showing that Olivia is not afraid to break the gender role standards by asking Sebastian if he will marry her. Even today it is uncommon for women to ask the man for marriage and being that she did, not only is it breaking a strict gender role, but it is showing that as a woman, Olivia is not afraid to ask for what she wants even if it is a not so popular act. Not only is Olivia an extremely strong character in this play, but Viola is also just as strong, if not stronger. Viola’s strength is uncovered right in the beginning of the play when she says to the captain; “There is a fair behavior in thee, captain,/ And though that nature with a beauteous wall/ Doth oft close in pollution, yet of thee/ I will believe thou hast a mind that suits/ With this thy fair and outward character./ I prithee—and I’ll pay thee bounteously—/ Conceal me what I am, and be my aid/ For such disguise as haply shall become/ The form of my intent. I’ll serve this duke./ Thou shall present me as an eunuch to him./ It may be worth thy pains, for I can sing/ And speak to him in many sorts of music/ That will allow me very worth his service./ What else may hap to time I will commit./ Only shape thou thy silence to my wit” (Act I. ii). These lines of Viola’s from the play do an excellent job of showing just
Orsino sends Cesario expresses his affection for Olivia, which Cesario/Viola is not thrilled about. with.
The play twelfth night, though largely a comedy, has it's fair share of challenges and obstacles which it's characters face throughout the plot. These revolve around love, honour and the death and loss of loved ones. However one character stands out to me as having faced the most difficult and trying of challenges, yet emerged with her pride and dignity intact. She coped well with all the problems that were thrown at her with a quiet resilience far beyond her years, and is worthy of our admiration.
Hamlet is angry with his mother before he encounters the ghost and discover that Claudius poisoned his brother, King Hamleet. Once Hamlet is aware of foul play, Claudius and Gertrude seem like parasites compared to his God of a father. He is not certain whether his mother played a part of her new husband’s plot. The purpose of the confron...
that Olivia has emotional power of nobleman Orsino when in Act I Scene I he declares, "O, she
Because of this confusing love triangle, some of the characters seem to view love as a curse. They also claim to suffer painfully from being in love or from the “pangs” of unrequited love. In Act 1 scene 5, Olivia describes love as a “plague” from which she suffers terribly. In Act 1 scene 1, Orsino depicts love dolefully as an “appetite” that he wants to satisfy and cannot. Another example of the characters not “liking” love is in Act 2 scene 2 when Viola says “My state is desperate for my master’s love.” This quote relates to the violence in Act 5 scene 1 when Orsino threatens to kill Cesario because he thin...
The love Olivia has felt isn’t romantic love, it’s the love for her brother “The element itself, till seven years ' heat,/Shall not behold her face at ample view,/But like a cloistress, she will veiled walk/And water once a day her chamber round/With eye-offending brine—all this to season/A brother’s dead love, which she would keep fresh/And lasting in her sad remembrance.”(1.1.25-31). Olivia’s love for Cesario is her attempt to fill a hole left by the death of her brother whom she loved deeply. She was vulnerable and in mourning, and Cesario was there and he was a gentleman “Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions, and spirit,/Do give thee fivefold blazon. Not too fast! Soft, soft!/Unless the master were the man. How now?/Even so quickly may one catch the plague?/Methinks I feel this youth’s perfections/With an invisible and subtle stealth/To creep in at mine eyes. Well, let it be.—”(1.5.274-280). Her love wasn’t real though, had her love been real she would not have mistakenly married Sebastian. She would have known that Sebastian wasn’t Cesario. Had Olivia’s love been real would it have mattered that Cesario was actually Viola in disguise? They may not have been able to be together because of time and society they lived in, but the feeling would have still been there. In the end Olivia essentially settles for Sebastian, because it wasn’t who she
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.
Ultimately, Viola gives herself a choice, either enter Illyria as a woman or disguise herself as a male named Cesario where she will live in servitude to the duke. In giving her self a choice, Viola transcends the traditional understanding of gender but also love from a humanistic perspective by denying her societal expectations as a woman in the 1600s. At the beginning of the play Viola decides to “conceal” her gender under her own pretenses that “For such disguise as haply shall become the form of my intent” (Shakespeare 1192). Her reasoning and determinism for disguising herself as a man helps revolutionizes the concept of love through Viola’s character development throughout the play where she “falls in love” with the character of Orensio, whom is the duke for which she serves. While, Viola could never determine that her “fate” was to fall in love with Orsensio, her choice at the beginning of act one helped determine her unorthodox path that lead her to not only fall in love with someone beyond her social class as a disguised boy but also define a different method of marriage in a 1600s
Viola/Ceasario's disguise hides most of her past: the shipwreck, her lost brother, and the fact that she is a woman. Her identity now as a man, is to move on in life and get a job. Her love for Orsino is hidden with her original identity, as though she works for him as his servant. She is a very strong character in the play. "I prithee (and I’ll pay thee bounteously)/ Conceal me what I am, and be my aid/ For such disguise as haply shall become/ The form of my intent. I’ll serve this duke." (1.2.52-55). After the shipwreck and the loss of her brother, Viola decides to move on using a disguise as her shield. Viola’s secret love for Orsino is different than the way Olivia loves Ceasario. Olivia is in lo...
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...