Twelfth Night

By nature, love is suppose to be a special thing that is meant for two people to experience, but during Elizabethan times all love had a price on it. Marriages were arranged so that the families could benefit from them and use them to their own advantages. In the play Twelfth Night, Shakespeare displays love both for advantages and for love from the heart. Although love conquers all in this play, the characters must first overcome the obstacles within themselves and then he or she can experience their form of love. The love in this play is as strange as the characters involved. All different types of people, such as lower class, upper class, men, or women, all obtain the love they desire.

There is a lot of love at first sight happening in this play. First there is Viola, who disguises herself as a boy to find work. This boy is Cesario. Once Viola finds work, she finds herself taken back and in awe by her employer Duke Orsiono. Viola’s love for the Duke is easily seen in her words when speaking to Valentine. Valentine was shocked to learn that after only three days Viola had become well known to the Duke. However, the Duke does not know that Cesario is really a girl, and begins to confess to Cesario his love for Lady Olivia.

Duke Orsino gets Cesario to deliver a message of love to Lady Olivia. In delivering the message to Lady Olivia, Viola again displays her love and likeness for the Duke in describing to Lady Olivia how the Duke feels about her. “My lord and master loves you. O, such love could be recompensed, though you were crowned the nonpareil of beauty.” Lady Olivia then asks, “How does he love me?” Viola says, “With adorations, fertile tears, with groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire.” Viola speaks from the heart, because she has a true and honest love for Orsino. The love Viola has for Duke Orsino is the only love in this play that comes from the heart and is real. Viola causes much confusion, but she does accomplish bringing out kindness and generosity in both Olivia and Orsino.

Duke Orsino tells of his love for Lady Olivia, but it is not really a love for Olivia. He seems to be infatuated with love itself. He has a hunger for love. Orsino can change his mind about who he loves in a minute. At first he claims a love for Lady Olivia, but then as he learns that Cesario is really a girl, who then confesses her love for the Duke, he quickly embraces Viola and forgets about Olivia. Duke Orsino had a great obsession with being in love, and not with who he is really in love with. We can compare this to Romeo who claims to be so in love with Rosaline, but then sees Juliet and falls madly in love with her.

Malvilo loves himself and does not listen to what anyone else has to say or think. He believes he knows best and deserves only the best. This becomes obvious when he says, “Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.” However, he says this while reading a letter from Olivia. In the letter, she is confessing her love for him when in fact that letter is written by Maria. Maria dislikes Malvolio and plays a practical joke on him by writing this letter and getting him to wear yellow tights while confessing his love to Lady Olivia.

Malvolio’s high self-rank is humor in itself, because with all he thinks about himself, he is nothing to Lady Olivia. Malvolio’s view of himself comes back to haunt him in the end because he is the fool. Malvolio with all his high self-esteem plays the only “real” fool in love with himself. Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night displays the reflection of societies views on love and all it’s confusing emotions. In the end, all the characters found “love” in the way they were searching for it, whether it was for attraction or rank they all conquered their own definition of love. In this play, Shakespeare takes love beyond its seriousness as we know it, and lightens it with humor.