There is a certain degree of expectation with the genre of comedy that despite whatever difficulties appear within the play, by the end these will be resolved and the play will have a traditional happy-ending with a marriage or a celebration in the final scene. The “Twelfth Night” is no exception to this rule. Despite problems of confused identities and sexualities, the play ends with marriage for the major characters because they “have learned enough about their own foolishness to accept it wisely, and their reward, as it should be, is marriage.”(Schwartz 5140). There is a resolution of harmony to a certain extent and an endorsement of romantic love yet despite the happiness evident in the last scene, there are many elements in the play that causes the audience to wonder whether the happiness is forced or genuine. The words of a departing Malvolio, “I’ll be revenged on the whole pack you.”(Twelfth Night 5.1.365) leads to a conflict being unresolved. The marriage of Olivia and Sebastian also leads the audience to question whether Shakespeare has pushed the limitations of comedy to far, as Olivia marries Sebastian who she believes to Cesario and whose identity is only revealed after. The appearance of Antonio in the last scene also casts a sombre ambience over events; he is not united with the one he loves though he was willing to sacrifice his life for what he believed to Sebastian’s safety. The last discourse of the play from Festes once again returns to the melancholic mood that was apparent in the opening and it is this mood that remains with the audience.
In Shakespeare’s comedies, the audience have come to expect that the play will end on a note of happiness. Indeed, the “happiness of Shakespeare’s comic endings belong in s...
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...iage, traditionally associated with comedy and happy-endings, the audience is unsure whether the ending is happy or not.
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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. By constructing an ideal universe, Shakespeare attributes intricate symbolism of characters within the utopian backdrop to the individual desire of festivity, lust, and enjoyment present in human culture which in excess is not beneficial. Shakespeare “evokes its audience a recognition of the limits of festivity by abolishing such limits in the stage-world of Illyria”(Logan 223).
Barton, Anne. Introduction to Twelfth Night. The Riverside Shakespeare. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1974. 403-407.
Shakespeare, William. Twelfth Night, Or, What You Will. Ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2009. Print.
Hunter, G.K. "Shakespeare and the Traditions of Tragedy." Wells, Stanley, ed., pp. 113-117. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare Studies. Cambridge:
Shakespeare, William. Twelfth Night Or, What You Will. New York, New York: New American Library, 1998. Print.
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...