Disguise And Mistaken Identity In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

These changes in character between Tony and Romeo altered the themes from societal expectations, fate over free will, and complicated families to societal expectations in the 1950’s, inevitability of fate, and gang rivalry due to racism. First of all, Shakespeare depicted Romeo as a bit of a lover, whereas Tony was more of a loner. This change affected a theme of West Side Story because societal expectations vary based on time period, which allowed for Tony to act differently than Romeo. Shakespeare set Romeo and Juliet in the 1300’s or the Elizabethan era, during this time period it was typical of young men to find women, which explains Romeo’s romantic behavior. This conversation in the play, between Friar Laurence and Romeo shows how easily Romeo switched his love interests: FRIAR: God pardon sin, wast thou with Rosaline?

In the novel Romeo and Juliet, there are characters that have structural roles to play. These characters have a deeper and more significant meaning to the story than how they are literally interpreted by the reader. One of these character is Mercutio, a blood relative of the Prince and a close friend of Romeo. Mercutio's role in Romeo and Juliet is to provide the masculine comic potential through the action of degrading love in a joking fashion as observed in the Queen Mab speech, the taunting of the Nurse, and the taunting of Romeo through Rosaline. One example of how Mercutio is the masculine comic potential is through the Queen Mab speech.

As a result of Oberon having false love for Titania, she oddly falls for a clown with a donkey head. Titania confidently states,” I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again./ Mine ear is much enamored of thy note./ So is mine eye enthrallèd to thy shape./ And thy fair virtue’s force perforce doth move me/ On the first view to say, to swear, I love thee.” (Shakespeare 3.1.64-68). As noted earlier, Egues had chosen a man for Hermia to marry. This man was Demetrius, although Hermia was not in love him, Demetrius was madly in love with Hermia. Puck is instructed to place lotion into

Arguably William Shakespeare’s most famous play, Romeo and Juliet follows two star-crossed lovers who struggle to hide their love from their feuding families. Much like how Shakespeare explores both the differences and the relationship between the Capulets and the Montagues, the play highlights the correspondence of opposing themes through three characters named Mercutio, Benvolio, and Tybalt, Romeo’s two friends and sworn enemy. Shakespeare includes Romeo’s counterparts to distinguish his unique personality and to emphasize relationships between major contrasting subjects in the play: comedy and tragedy, peace and conflict, and love and anger. Mercutio acts as both Romeo’s foil and the donor of much light-hearted humor within the play, which contrasts the tragic events that inevitably occur. As Romeo’s complete opposite, or foil, Mercutio often mocks the romance Romeo longs for, focusing instead on the physical aspects of love.

In the play Twelfth Night, through the depiction of Orsino’s and Viola’s desires for romantic love, Shakespeare portrays how adjustable and self-delusional human romantic attraction can be, especially when blinded by wants and needs. Viola, who puts on the appearance of a man, makes everybody think she is a male. Her disguise becomes a sexual confusion throughout the play for several characters, creating an odd love triangle where Viola loves Duke Orsino, who loves Oliva, which then on the other hand loves Viola, in disguise as Cesario. On the other hand, Malvolio dreams of marrying his beloved Olivia, and gaining authority over his superiors, like Sir Toby. Shakespeare uses disguise in the play to show several confusions and internal conflicts between the characters, proving how malleable and deluded some human attractions can be.

However against this background of civil conflict, something wonderful happens, two young people fall in love. But there is only one problem one of them is a Montague, a dreamy young man named Romeo, and the other a Capulet, beautiful thirteen-year old Juliet. Moreover the play begins with a street conflict between. Where the Prince tries to bring back order by threatening punishment of death to the next person who starts a fight. However Romeo, originally is in love with Rosaline, he is convinced by his friends to attend the Capulet ball where he falls in love with Juliet, and he quickly forgot Rosaline.

He was entertaining and the turning point for the main theme that climaxed the bliss and tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. With Mercutio being such a skeptic, he mocks love and makes fun of his best friend Romeo when he finds out he has fallen in love with a Capulet; Mercutio states “Romeo, Humors! Madman! Passion! Lover!

There are many people who have a strong ego. Egotism is when someone thinks excessively about themself. The characters that Shakespeare gave strong egos to helped shape the story, by giving it depth. In the book “Twelfth Night”, Shakespeare presents a few characters with a strong ego. Egotism can have many forms and are shown through people in a very full of themselves kind of way.

In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the title characters make impulsive decisions from the moment they are introduced to the audience. For example, during the first moments of meeting in Act I, both Romeo and Juliet profess their love for each other and Juliet even claims, in seeking out Romeo’s identity, that “If he is married, My grave is like to be my wedding bed” (Shakespeare 396). Juliet, in these lines, is stating that if she cannot have Romeo, she would rather die than be with anyone else. This behavior is rather surprising, as Juliet has just met Romeo and knows nothing about him. The article, “Beautiful Brains” addresses studies and findings on how the development of the teenage brain correlates with impulsive behavior in teenagers stating, “We all like new and exciting things, but we never value them more highly than we do during adolescence.

In Romeo and Juliet, Romeo is the more compulsive than Juliet. First, Romeo falls in love much to easily. Romeo says to Benvolio “ Out of her favor where I am in love” (1.1.178) This example illustrates Romeo is more compulsive because he is clearly in love with someone who doesn’t show interest. Second, Romeo falls in love at first sight. Romeo says “For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.” (1.5.58) This example implies that Romeo falls in love at first sight.