Viola In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

William Shakespeare is one of the world’s greatest writers but he isn’t known for just one genre. Shakespeare was popular in many genres: tragedy, comedy, history, and romance. Two of the most popular comedies he wrote were Twelfth Night and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Both are light hearted and enjoyable because of their humor and romance elements. Twelfth Night is a play about confusion, love triangles, and goofing around. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a play about love, humor, and fairies that can alter feelings quite easily. Shakespeare had to use irony as a very big element in both comedies. The use of irony creates confusion which illustrates Shakespeare’s point about the madness of love and how messy life can get.

One of the numerous concepts, in this movie, is the different cultures. As Viola changes indentities, she experiences unfamiliar cultures. Within her feminine culture, Viola understands how things work. She knows that inside this femininity, there is nurturance and service to others. The feminine culture, in this movie, presents how women are likely to embrace their expressive behavior. Viola shows this by attending her mothers Debutante Ball. On the

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?

Another difference in the plot is in a Twelfth Night Viola is serving Orsino by helping him try to win the love of Olivia. In She’s the Man Viola even though she is helping Duke try to get a date with Olivia, she is trading it for him to train her in soccer. Which in return makes her a better player. Viola is helping Duke to get something in return, but the other Viola from a Twelfth Night is helping Orsino because she is in service to him.

When you are ready to dive into the vast world of Shakespeare, you can begin by using what is known as a critical lens. The lens that may help you understand the background details of one of Shakespeare’s plays would be the Historical lens. Although there are many different lens that you can use to interpret a story, the Historical Lens is a great lens to dive into to find what really influenced the great ideas of William Shakespeare as he wrote Hamlet including the role gender plays, the comparison of Elizabeth Tudor, and the religious incorporation throughout the play.

Hamlet's words, “frailty thy, name is a woman” (1.2.148), forever redefined femininity in literature. Throughout works such as The Great Gatsby and Hamlet women are never treated as equals to their male counterparts and their role is characterized by misogyny, dependency and utter obedience. According to Aristotle, “the courage of a man lies in commanding, a woman's lies in obeying; that 'matter yearns for form, as the female for the male and the ugly for the beautiful”. Hamlet and The Great Gatsby reveal compelling parallels in their portrayal of the role of women. The mistreatment and inequality of women is a predominant issue in each work and is illustrated through the two main female protagonists, Queen Gertrude and Daisy Buchanan. Ultimately, women are

The question of why Olivia, after dramatically declaring her affections for Cesario, would so quickly jump to Sebastian after finding Viola’s true identity, is likely answered by the societal norms of the Elizabethan era. Cesario and Viola are two halves of one whole; by loving Cesario, Olivia loves Viola too. Upon meeting “him,” Olivia says “Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions and spirit/ Do give thee five-fold blazon” (1.5.297-298). She is attracted not just to Cesario’s mannerisms, but to Viola’s beauty, which shines through her male bravado. The “actions and spirit” which Olivia refers to are Viola’s ability to converse with Olivia woman-to-woman, unbeknownst to the countess. Twelfth Night seems to present gender as a mask to be worn and taken off at will, a fluid concept that changes to suit one’s needs and emotions. By playing Cesario, Viola partly becomes this version of herself, so Olivia, by loving Cesario, has feelings for Viola by extension. When Sebastian makes his reveal, Olivia marries him for two reasons. The first is an external piece of reasoning, being that in Elizabethan comedies such as this, heterosexual pairings must happen for the play to follow the fairly strict expectations of a comedy. The second falls to Sebastian’s demeanor. Throughout the play, he demonstrates a sense

In the 1400’s, women's lives were completely dependent on men. They were raised to not do anything for their own interest, but for the interest or benefit of the men in their lives. Women were not at all seen as equals to men, and especially not so if they were unmarried. In Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet, Juliet Capulet’s life is influenced by the dominant male figures that surround her. Juliet’s gender is what forces her to be dependent on others and their decisions, which will eventually lead to her death.

Vanity, one of Twelfth Night 's major concerns, is displayed throughout the play by characters who are plagued with emotional conditions which prevent them from loving others. The lives of Illyria 's Duke Orsino and Countess Olivia, for example, remain circumscribed by vanity and narcissism. Similarly, Olivia 's steward, Malvolio, remains encumbered by vanity and narcissism, while Olivia 's Uncle Toby shows himself to be selfish, and his drinking partner, Sir Andrew, stands as a caricature of vanity. In contrast, Viola, an outsider shipwrecked upon Illyria 's shore, suffers solely from grief for her sea-drowned twin brother. In further contrast, Olivia 's lady-in-waiting, Maria, displays none of these characteristics, but instead operates as the play

During the Elizabethan period, the role of women in society was very different from what it is today. According to the system of patriarchal society that dictated that women were inferior to men, they had to obey the male figures in their lives. The woman was seen as the weaker sex either physically or emotionally which meant that it was entirely dependent on her husband if married and members of his family if single. Moreover, in the Elizabethan theater, women were not allowed to play because of this hierarchy. Therefore, they were replaced by men disguised as women. In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, published in 1601, women play a very special role. First, it should be noted that there are only two women in the room: Gertrude and Ophelia. By developing the role

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

Also even after being turned down by Cesario, Olivia still goes after him. She asks Cesario, who is really Sebastion, “Would thou’dst be ruled by me!” (4.2.61). Sebastian agrees not knowing that Olivia has him confused with another person. Later in the story, Olivia, asks Sebastian, still thinking that he is Cesario , to marry her, which was a very forward and not very lady like thing to do. Men always take the lead when it came to matters of

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 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.

Shakespeare uses Viola (Cesario) as an example of a mechanism that can throw internal conflicts into temporary chaos. Viola willingly faces whatever comes in her way. Her love for Duke Orsino seems too constant and true, unlike the other characters in the play. The temporary chaos of the play is when Viola falls in love with Orsino, who falls in love with Olivia, who on the other hand falls in love with Viola’s disguise, Cesario. This love triangle is very complicated as none of them realize that Cesario is a woman, making this an internal conflict for Viola, as she cannot ‘truly’ love whom she wants. After Viola (dressed as Cesario) leaves to