The play Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare is a comedy with the theme of love. In the play, we come to see that none of the relationships that develop are treated normal, or what we call true love because true love has no reason, often it just obtain without knowing. However if you think about the relationships in this play you can see that the characters are all searching for love or have a reason to find love. For example Malvolio needs Olivia’s love because this way he can raise status and wealth, Sir Andrew on the other hand wants Olivia’s love because this is what everyone has persuaded him into thinking. Duke however wants love in broad because he is in love with the aim of love and is using Olivia as the face to the aim of love even though he has never carried out a true chat with her. It is seen that these relationships are not obtain true love especially when compared with Viola’s love for Orsino. …show more content…
Like his early comedies, “The Comedy of Errors or The Taming of the Shrew for instance” Twelfth Night is actually a celebration of romantic love and can be noticed as a traditional romantic comedy. The play has many of the parts common to Elizabethan romantic comedy, along with the devices of mistaken integrity, separated twins, and gender-crossing veil, and its plot revolves around overcoming hurdles to "true" love. And, like other models of the genre, Twelfth Night also qualities a subplot in which a self-bloated "sour" or "blocking" character, the steward Malvolio, is brought to his knees through a trap managed by a coarse if also self-bloated character in the person of Sir Toby
Twelfth Night is a story of loss, tragedy, and love that is masquerading as a romantic comedy of sorts a perfect example of Shakespeare’s true talents of expressing deep metaphor in very interesting ways. This is a play about the ocean deep, salty, unpredictable, rough and difficult to navigate but after enough time and understanding, you can see the beauty in the deep blue water. The salty water seems very basic and easy to understand but upon closer inspection, you can see the true depth and complexity of the briny water. The play has a similar effect when first starting it one could come to the conclusion that things are simple and exactly what they seem but within a few lines things get progressively more and more complicated just as the water does. The shape of twelfth night is that of the ocean blue vast, unpredictable and extremely deep but with the right understanding and experience you can navigate it rough waters to reach your destination safe and sound.
An examination of Romeo and Juliet reveals that Shakespeare’s purpose was to warn readers about impulsive decisions, warn others about the dangers of blind love, and to also show readers to appreciate love in their life, specifically love received from family and friends.
Although the comedic purpose of the cruelty embedded amongst the humour is not so easily identifiable with modern audiences, it should not be ignored. Fundamentally, the pitiless strands of cruelty serve a principle function in the comedic formula to entertain the audience. Correspondingly, the audience of the play can overlook the cruelty in the play and validate laughing at character’s suffering because Malvolio was serving the Shakespearean convention of a character whose failings can be laughed at but also introduces a darker note to the play. Ultimately, this means that the harsh cruelty is extensively cloaked by
The classic play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare explores the theme of love. In his play shakespeare reveals that love is doomed,superficial, strong and powerful and therefore very complex. This theme is effectively portrayed through the use of figurative language,metaphor, hyperbole and personification William shakespeare’s illustration of love being destined to fail is portrayed within the tragedy romeo and juliet. The use of figurative language is evident in “A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life.” the use of this figurative language reflects that love is something that is doomed and will end in grief and heartbreak this is represented from very the start of the play when romeo is in love with rosaline but rosoline doesnt love him back all the way to the end when romeo kills himself because he thinks juliet has perished.
William Russell English 9 2/28/17 A Midsummer Night’s Dream Essay (Final Draft) For centuries, literary works have relied on love to establish engaging subplots and presidential character motivations; however, different authors have interpreted this complex emotion with varying degrees of success. In the play A Midsummer Night's Dream, love is depicted differently depending on the relational status of the characters and the situations in which they are involved in. In the beginning of the play, Shakespeare establishes the indecisive and conflicted relationship that has formed between Theseus and Hippolyta.
In Twelfth Night, Malvolio plays the important role of the victim, and it is only through this role that he experiences and understands the subtleties and nuances of sanity. His encounter with Sir Topas presents sanity from a different angle, highlighting the role of perspective in the determination of madness, while also shedding light on the contradictions between rationality and reality. Sir Topas shows Malvolio through their encounter the inherent futility in trying to prove his sanity to others. Although Malvolio seemingly appears to have a tragic ending, we find that he exits the play with a newfound lucidness and control that he previously was missing.
When Olivia is first entertained by the Fool, she recognizes that “[Malvolio] [is] sick of self-love,” revealing Malvolio’s arrogance (Twelfth Night 1.5, 89-92). This arrogance is linked to his Christian self-righteousness when Maria describes him as “a puritan...an affectioned ass…[that] persuaded of himself,...that it is his grounds of faith that all that look on him love him, (TN 2.3, 145-150). Thus, Maria identifies that Malvolio’s self-love is tied up in his piousness, and that he uses his moral superiority as justification for his high opinion of himself. Malvolio takes this pride and sense of superiority further by desiring to be “Count Malvolio,” and imagining Sir Toby “curts[ying]” to him, indicating not only his desire for prestige and power, but his belief that Sir Toby is physically lower than himself because of his “drunkenness,”(TN 2.5, 34, 60-73). Malvolio thus uses his Puritanism as fuel for his actions and desires, imagining himself to be morally superior to Sir Toby and therefore more entitled to a higher social position.
In A Midsummer Night’s Dream Shakespeare leads us through an abnormal love. The environment occurs in the distinguished kingdom of Athens where all decisions are conducted by superiority. The four lovers are constrained by the traditions and unable to convey their extensive love for one another they seek for liberation. Meddlesome forces, but majical, taunt their love as they rival their relentless passion driving them apart, but bringing them closer still. William Shakespeare was a renowned English Poet, playwright, and actor.
Love: is it human’s greatest success or human’s greatest flaw? Are we as humans so pulled towards the false ideology of what love is supposed to be like that we completely lose sight of who we are as people in the process and willing to go to great, dangerous lengths to attain this unachievable love? We are forced to ponder this question as we are taken through a journey of love in both the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, and also William Shakespeare’s play, Othello. Readers are shown through both the novel and the play of the lives of the men who are so different yet portrayed as the same kind of fools in love—the dashing Jay Gatsby of West Egg and the Lieutenant Othello of Cyprus—in these tragedies that love is not just what
In his play, Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare has his characters participate in the practice of deception and dishonesty of others - after all, the foundation of Shakespeare’s play resides within a lie. One of the major deceptions in the play is executed by the Illyrian countess, Olivia, as she repeatedly claims to need solitude to mourn her brother’s death in order to avoid Duke Orsino and his obsession towards her. This deception contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole by adding the thematic message, deception and dishonesty is sometimes the better option when it comes to love. From the beginning of the play, Olivia is introduced as the grieving countess that has recently lost a brother.
A poetic irony - Shakespeare gives one of the most thoughtful lines in the play, to the least thoughtful of characters. Bottom says it all; sometimes there is no reason to justify true love. Often, when one’s mind becomes obstructed by love, most reason, logic and rationale goes away in order to fulfill that love. Therefore love really keeps little company to reason, and can become very foolish and filled with
This raises the question over love’s true meaning and whether what Orsino feels is truly “love,” or something else entirely. Shakespeare in his play Twelfth Night uses Orsino’s feelings to prove that feelings perceived at first to be love may actually be lust. The main difference between love and lust has to do with time. Built and
As he states that all lovers are, “Unstaid and skittish in all motions else / Save in the constant image of the creature / That is beloved.” (2.4, 20-22). This demonstrates Orsino’s misunderstanding of the concept of love, as it seems that true love means fickle and erratic according to his definition. Furthermore, in disguise as Cesario, Viola also unintentionally exposes the passionate nature beneath the courtly manner and mourning veil of the “virtuous maid” (1.2, 32), as she causes Olivia to fall in desperate love with Cesario.
The first instance which supports the notion that a lapse of communication is responsible for the unsuccessful nature of heterosexual relationships is the case of Duke Orsino and Countess Olivia’s relationship. Both start the play preoccupied with their own concerns, Orsino is worried about finding love, specifically with Olivia, meanwhile she is busy mourning the death of her brother by refusing to marry anyone for seven years. However, it is Orsino’s obsession with seeking love and how he goes about pursuing Olivia that best exemplifies the problematic nature of a male and female’s relationship. Orsino opened the play by saying of love, “Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, / The appetite may sicken and so die” (1.1.1-3), essentially saying that he so badly craves the feeling being in love gives him, that he would like in so great a quantity that it would end his life.
Shakespeare’s novel “Macbeth” demonstrates the many ways in which love can factor into a play. Through the connections built between characters, and the relationship Macbeth holds with power, the ways in which love are perceived through “Macbeth” are evident. In Shakespeare’s play “Macbeth,” there is a strong relationship between Lady Macbeth and Macbeth, the relationship between the two characters is known as the most obvious - yet this relationship challenges traditional perceptions of love. The attitude Lady Macbeth and Macbeth have towards each other constantly changes, thus making it hard to form a clear-cut opinion of their relationship.