Homosexuality In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

Shakespeare’s plays are often associated with great love stories. Love is a subject which is omnipresent in both his tragedies and comedies. In comedies, love is even a requirement that “is always fulfilled despite all of the blocking complications” (Charney 27). These complications are often the main plot of the plays, the reason why the story unfolds the way it does. It is these complications that give depth to the characters, their relationships and their love. The ways these complications unfold give us indications as to how two individuals relate to each other and how deep their connection is. They reveal holes in character traits and test the characters’ faith, trust and trustworthiness. These attributes are among the ones questioned in both The Taming of the Shrew and Much Ado about Nothing. In these two plays are four main relationships which unravel over the course of the events. These are four love stories with their own complications and obstacles to overcome. Yet, as individual as they may seem, they share certain similarities between them. On the one hand we have Bianca and Lucentio in The Taming of the Shrew and Hero and Claudio in Much Ado about Nothing who share a certain resemblance in the way their relationships form and especially how said relationships then express themselves. More importantly, there are Kate and Petruccio in The Taming of the Shrew and Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado about Nothing who share one striking complication in their

We’ve all heard about Shakespeare, we’ve all learned and read something about Shakespeare, but do you know how many movies are based on a Shakespeare play? According to Stephen Follows Film Data and education there are 525 films based on Shakespeare plays, 294 of those are full adaptations of Shakespeare plays, Hamlet being the most adapted play. One of these 525 films is She’s The Man, which is based on the play Twelfth Night. We all know that these movies are a little different then it’s original play, but do we know which are the differences and similarities?

In the play a Twelfth Night Shakespeare writes about a girl who pretends to be a boy after being shipwrecked and thinking her brother was dead. This theme is also apparent in the movie She’s the man. Viola is a girl who pretends to be her brother so that she play soccer for another school. This movie draws in a hilarious comedy as Viola tries to room with a male while being a female. The two are fascinatedly similar but still very different.

William Shakespeare is one of the most enduring playwrights of the last 1,000 years. It is rare for an average American high school student to graduate without reading at least one of Shakespeare’s works. The themes of Shakespeare’s most famous works still resonate with readers of all ages, race, and economic backgrounds today. Love, betrayal, and revenge always seem more powerful when spoken in Shakespearean English by actors wearing tights. She’s the Man and 10 Things I Hate About You deal with teenage rebellion, friendship, and unruly family members, while still managing to embrace original themes from their source material.

In William Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet, two families, the Capulets and the Montagues, engage in a vicious rivalry. Infatuated teenagers and members of the two rival families, Romeo and Juliet, engage in a secret love affair. Friar Lawrence and the nurse serve as authoritative figures to Romeo and Juliet, respectively. Both the friar and the nurse enable the young couple to prosper despite their contrasting motivations to do so. Shakespeare exhibits the complications of gender through the comparison of the friar and the nurse because he is suggesting that the differences between gender, traditionally, are inherently different.

The play “Much Ado About Nothing” by William Shakespeare is a comedy that tells the tale of two pairs of lovers: Hero and Claudio, and Beatrice and Benedict. Though the main plot of the story revolves around Hero and Claudio, Benedict and Beatrice’s romantic relationship is an important subplot to the story. In “Much Ado About Nothing”, Shakespeare uses irony, hyperbole, and use of language to illustrate Benedict and Beatrice as a nontraditional spin on the ideal couple through the strength and security of their love, as can be shown in dialogue not traditionally associated with love.

For Shakespeare’s plays to contain enduring ideas, it must illustrate concepts that still remain relevant today, in modern society. Shakespeare utilises his tragic play Othello, to make an important social commentary on the common gender stereotypes. During early modern England, Shakespeare had to comply to the strict social expectations where women were viewed as tools, platonic and mellow, and where men were displayed as masculine, powerful, tempered, violent and manipulative. As distinct as this context is to the 21st century, the play exposes how women were victimised by the men who hold primary power in the community in which they compelled women to conform to the ideal world of a perfect wife or confront an appalling destiny for challenging the system. Moreover, Shakespeare utilises the main antagonist, Iago, to portray how men are desperate to achieve what they want and to indirectly fulfil the stereotype of masculinity and power through manipulation. Throughout the play we observe Emilia’s character change, and how she suffered the consequence of challenging the system.

In the movie She’s The Man, Viola and her teammates learn that their soccer team has been cut so they go to talk to the boys coach to ask him if they can try out for the boys team. While the girls are talking to the coach and the boys team, the coach says, “but girls aren 't as fast as boys….Or as strong. Or as athletic. This is not me talking. It’s a scientific fact. Girls can’t beat boys. It’s as simple as that.” (Fickman, Andy, 2006). This shows the women are not being accepted because they did not even have the chance to try out for the boys team, the coach didn’t even offer them a shot. Furthermore, in the movie, Viola was talking to her brother Sebastian about his band and her soccer and he said, “You know the percentage of bands that make it to the big time, probably the same as female soccer players” (Fickman, Andy, 2006). Instead of lifting his sister up after learning about her soccer team being cut, he negatively talked about females and their success in sports. This is degrading because he is shutting down Viola and her dreams. To continue, in the play The Twelfth Night, Duke Orsino speaks to Viola, who he believes to be Cesario, and says, “There is no woman’s

Shakespeare’s renowned play Twelfth Night centers around love, both in platonic and romantic instances. Characters display elements of self, brotherly, amorous, and friendly love towards one another; however, of the relationships portrayed, the strongest ones are those between men. In contrast, relationships between men and women lack depth and sincerity due to the lapse of communication between the opposing genders. Men are able to express their feelings to one another more freely, which gives their bonds strength that heterosexual relationships fail to display.

Slapstick comedy also brings out Sebastian and Olivia’s identities. “Cesario” placates Feste’s wordplay and desperately avoids fighting with Sir Toby whereas Sebastian jumps in ready to fight two men in the same breath. Similarly, Olivia thinks she needs to help the previously weak “Cesario” and relishes in an attempt to control such a malleable young man. Ironically, she immediately blames the violence on Sir Toby which would align with “Cesario’s” disposition but it is actually Sebastian causing trouble.

William Shakespeare’s Macbeth incorporates a wide range of stylistic devices, including figurative language, symbolism, repetition, soliloquy and foreshadowing to explore the destructive nature of unchecked ambition. Shakespeare explore the role of the supernatural, and questions the influence of fate and free will on people’s actions. He also examines how gender lines are blurred due to the ambiguous nature of gender, leaving ambition unchecked, and how false appearances are a consequence of this unchecked ambition.

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. This shows another aspect of Olivia’s character, and initiates a more intriguing plot. Viola’s persistent disguise allows the audience to understand more about both Orsino’s idea of love and an introduction to Olivia’s true feelings. Through all of these examples, Shakespeare clearly shows that sometimes truth can emerge only through disguise and

In the 16th century, not only in England but also almost in all the countries, all the families were “under” the patriarchal society. A patriarchy, from the ancient Greek patriarches, was a society where power was held by and passed down through the elder males. When modern historians and sociologists describe a "patriarchal society," they mean that men hold the positions of power: head of the family unit, leaders of social groups, boss in the workplace and heads of government. Unfortunately, this fact still exists, even today in the 21st century in many countries, especially in the Muslim countries where women have restricted rights.

In Twelfth Night, Viola and Olivia are the central characters to the play’s plot. Each are young women that take approaches to dealing with the people around them, which are mainly men. There is much trickery that goes on in Twelfth Night, but the ending is for the most part happy. Viola marries Orsino and Olivia marries Sebastian, but the events leading up to this are more or less chaotic. Ultimately, I argue that while Olivia uses her higher social status in order to maintain control of herself and others, Viola resorts to trickery in order to bring about her desires. Thus, there are ways that Viola and Olivia both reserve information about themselves while also remaining authentic to an extent.

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.