Twelfth Night Viola Essay

Viola and Beatrice both take on men's roles, Viola that of a manservant and Beatrice that of the perpetual bachelor and the clown: "I was born to speak all mirth and no matter," she says to Don Pedro [II.i.343-4]. They appear to be actors and manipulators, much more so than their female predecessors, who are mostly reactive and manipulated, such as Hermia, Helena, Titania, and Gertrude. None of these women seemed in charge of her own destiny, but tricked by the schemes of men and later scorned or humiliated as a result of male machinations. Viola and Beatrice, although they both seem fiercely independent and comfortable in a man's world, reveal themselves to have only the trappings of manhood, and not its full capacity for action.

Viola’s characters in the film shows the most power as she repeatedly switches from female to male and represents herself different ways. The film shows that being a female you can’t join the men’s soccer team no matter how good you are, which takes away Viola’s power to be able to play soccer. As Viola disguises as her brother she struggles with the social and soccer life because she is always having to prove her manliness, in order to fit in and receive respect from the other males. When she finally proved how manly she was through a series of tough actions, she then gets accepted and makes first string for soccer.

Tom Sawyer is a boy who lives with his Aunt Polly, and two cousins, Sid, and Mary. His life consists of a lot of choices. Some good, and some bad. Once, he and Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer's best friend, and their good friend Joe Harper, decided that they were going to run away and become pirates. They ran away and were gone for three days and nights. Then, when they were caught in a hurricane, they found out that being pirates wasn't all fun and games, as they thought it would be. Finally, they decided that it would be a good time to go home, but when they got back home, they found out that the towns people were holding a funeral service for the three missing boys. That was one of Tom's really bad decisions, mainly because he scared his aunt

Twelfth Night is a very feminist play once readers have been reading it. The story’s protagonist is a woman, Viola. Viola displays herself as a rational, strong, witting woman, who has to disguise herself as a man to be able to become a faithful attendant of Orsino. With Viola doing this it creates a big sexual mess as Viola falls in love with Orsino but cannot tell him since he still thinks she is a man. While Olivia, who is the object of Orsino’s affection, falls for Cesario, the disguise for Viola. Once Viola’s true identity is revealed Orsino declares his love for Viola which suggest that he may really just loved the masculinity she possessed. Orsino says to Viola, even after seeing her true identity, “Cesario, come; For so you shall be, while you are a man; But when in other habits you are seen, Orsino's mistress and his fancy's queen” (Shakespeare, Twelfth Night 5.1.2599-26001). After everything has been reveled Orsino still calls Viola by her disguise name…her boy name, Cesario. The readers can only wonder is Orsino truly loved Viola for her or if he was in love with the male persona she gave.

Viola’s first words that lay out her gender defying scheme are “Conceal me what I am and be my aid for sure a disguise as haply shall become the form of my intent” (Shakespeare 1.2.53-56). Throughout Twelfth Night Shakespeare plays with the idea of gender and its role in society. The audience sees Orsino, the duke, trip over his words in his misogynistic contradictions of his opinions on women and their ability to love. Surprisingly, Viola also shares in such contradictions. However she is far from being misogynistic in modern terms. Viola’s outward duality is Shakespeare’s means of contrasting her with Orsino and reinforcing her disguise. (maybe: commenting on the nature of disguises)

In Twelfth Night, Shakespeare contradicts vapid stereotypes about gender. Through Viola’s disguise as Cesario, he is able to prove that a woman is able to fulfill a man 's role in society. She is able to fool the other characters and is even able to woo another woman. This reinforces ideas about how invalid the rules and regulations society has made since Viola easily broke through them. Later on in the story, Sir Andrew challenges Viola to a duel. Viola expects Sir Andrew to be a great fighter, and he expects the same from her. This creates a comedic situation since they both are too afraid of each other to engage in the fight. (3.4, 223-298)

movie varies greatly from the original play. The frivolous tone of this adaptation fails to epitomize the historical setting, depth of characters, and poetic magnificence of this comedic play. In She’s The Man the plot revolves around Viola, and her struggle to be recognized as a professional soccer player. When the girls’ team at her school is cancelled, she decides to disguise herself as her twin brother Sebastian (who coincidentally leaves for London to pursue his passion in music) in order to join the boys’ soccer team at his boarding school. However she is instantly captivated by her new roommate Duke Orsino, and he asks her to divulge his fervent and vehement love for their classmate Olivia. The movie essentially modernizes the play in order to remove the boring stigma associated with Shakespeare’s plays but with some futile additions that distort or are gross misrepresentations of the original play.

All throughout Illyria, there is romance, passion, royalty, and an immense amount of gender stereotypes. William Shakespeare imagines the kingdom of Illyria to have very traditional norms for both women and men in his play Twelfth Night. In Scene 2 of Act 1, Viola, recently rescued from a shipwreck, hears about a duke named Orsino and instantly comes up with a plan to get closer to him. Her plan is to disguise herself as a boy who she will name Cesario and become one of Orsino's’ attendants. Right off the bat, we begin to see gender stereotypes. Why must Viola become a man in order to work for the duke? Elizabethan society “molded women into the form of the dutiful wife and mother” (Elizabethan Women). Viola could not have served duke Orsino as a woman because as a woman she was expected to work at home and be either a “dutiful wife [or a] mother”. Scene two prepares the audience for the idea of gender throughout the rest of the play. Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is very traditional play due to its ideas of gender stereotypes in Elizabethan society.

In Twelfth Night, the protagonist of the story, Viola, is displayed as a rational, sacrificial, sincere, strong, witty woman, who disguises herself as a man, to become a faithful attendant of Orsino. Viola is one with sacrificial and patient love, willingly loving Orsino, and attending to his every need. Orsino, on the other hand, is shown as an emotional man, who has superficial and transient love for Olivia. This love is very abruptly shifted to Viola at the end of the play, when Viola reveals her true identity. Through this contrast of these two individuals, we can see that Shakespeare makes a distinct different between genders, and allows to draw a contrast between characters to think deeper into their characters and purpose in the story, beyond their surface appearances.

     Unlike the other characters in Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night", Viola's feelings of love are genuine. She is not mistaken about Orsino's true nature and loves him for who he really is, while the other characters in the play seem to be in love with an illusion. Viola's love for Orsino does not alter during the play, nor is it transferred to another person.

 There are many examples of disguise and Viola / Cesarios disguise alone enables her to work for Orsino as a messenger, it causes Olivia to fall in love with her and it causes both of them to disguise their feelings from each other.  From "I prithee tell me what thou think'st of me" to "Would it be better, madam, than I am?" Viola and Olivia spin in a web of doubt about disguised identity and emotions.

Viola also associates music with the major theme of love and connection in the scene of her first appearance in the play in Act I Scene ii. Viola’s plan is to be presented to Orsino as a eunuch. She tells the captain “For I can sing/ And speak to him in many sorts of music” (60-61). Viola recognizes that music is the food of love too, as Orsino states in his opening soliloquy. These lines also imply that Viola will try to woo Orsino with music, which the audience discovers is true in Act II Scene iv when she tells Orsino the story of about “Cesario’s sister,” although Orsino resists her at the time and continues to try to woo Olivia.

Viola has this weak heart because she falls in love with the Duke, Orsino, act one scene four, and can not show her affection for him because she is disguised as a male. The audience finds out that Viola is a female when she tells Orsino of love, then states, “ I am the daughter of all my fathers….and all the sons”(Act, Scene). Viola’s weakness does not help her during this play because she has to hide everything from everyone and ,in act three scene one, Feste has a suspicion of Viola about her being a female dressed as a male and he makes a speech about how smart a fool can actually be. He also makes a reference to Viola being Cressida,( a Trojan woman who was portrayed as the lover of Troilus, whom she deserted for Diomedes), as well as how she pretends to be something she is not and that one day someone will find out who and what she actually is and she will one day maybe get punished for not revealing who she really

In Twelfth Night Shakespeare uses gender roles and cross dressing to create disguise. This creates a sense of gender ambiguity and this is what makes the audience laugh - but although it creates a sense of fun and liveliness it also examines

In the dark and twisted play Macbeth written by William Shakespear, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth sought for royalty. Their sought for royalty only breaking them in the end. Macbeth the main character, is given too much power. Macbeth being over powered, he tends to gain and uses it in the wrong ways. Through the book we see Macbeth and Lady Macbeth become to overwhelmed with the power they gain and how they gained it. We see them being overwhelmed through the main themes of the story; such as, ambition, guilt, things are not what they seem, and nature versus the unnatural.