Twelfth Night Women

Gender equality is one of the main focuses in the Shakespearean play Twelfth Night. The movie “She’s the Man” is inspired by this play. The movie “She's the Man” challenges traditional views of males and females in society. In the movie, Amanda Bynes’s coach informs her soccer team that there will no longer be a girl’s team throughout the rest of the year. Unhappy about her coach’s statement, Amanda suggests that the girls should collaborate with the boys and play together on one team. The boys and coach find the idea to be laughable and disagree. When Amanda’s star athlete older brother runs off to travel the country to go on tour with his band, he convinces Amanda to disguise herself as him until his return. She pretends to be him for two

Another story where love is fickle is in Twelfth Night. Orsino loves Olivia and tries to woo her, but Olivia rejects his love. However, when Orsino sends his manservant Cesario to declare Orsino’s love for Olivia, Olivia begins to fall in love with Cesario. Throughout the story, Orsino begins to take interest in his manservant and Olivia falls deeper in love with Cesario. Orsino’s love for Olivia is love at first sight, which does not last very long when he begins to love Cesario. At the end of the play, Olivia mistakes Sebastian for Cesario and marries Sebastian. In this play, Shakespeare shows that love is fickle and characters marry before they truly know if they really love each other. Olivia’s marriage to Sebastian does not display any

Queensland Theatre’s take on one of Shakespeare’s highly renowned plays, Twelfth Night, performed at QPAC has been re-written and adjusted for a more modern audience. The classic comedy contains gender problems and identity crises. Through this play, the director Sam Strong has been able to successfully achieve his goal of proving to modern audiences exactly how incredible and robust Shakespeare’s pieces are. Strong’s creative manipulation of dramatic action and staging, as well as plentiful representation of themes such as gender stereotypes and sexuality and also the use of certain aspects of Elizabethan comedy have all come together to successfully bring Shakespeare to be enjoyed by a whole new era.

Shakespeare presents Olivia as a person who has been swept off their feet, with her falling in love in an instant without warning. She can’t contain her new love as is evident when she says ‘Not so fast! Soft, soft!’ , showing she is so in love she has to tell herself to calm down and stop being so rash as she has only just met Cesario. In this scene, Olivia has just met Cesario, a girl called Viola in disguise, who was meant to deliver a message of love from one of Olivia’s suitors, Orsino but has inadvertently caused Olivia to fall hopelessly in love with her instead.

Olivia tells Viola after listening to her message from Orsino, “I cannot love him. Let him send no more- unless perchance you come to me again to tell me how he takes it” (I. v. 285-287). Evidently, Olivia does not want any part in Orsino, even when he sends his heartfelt poems and messages to her. However, at no point does Orsino ever try to talk with her, and never meets Olivia in person (until around the time he discovers Cesario as a woman named Viola). Shakespeare uses this information to show how a lust for someone without knowing her/his true personality and attitude cannot consider itself genuine love. Even Olivia eventually starts to look into Orsino’s true personality and character, and develops a more genuine and developed love for him than his initial love for her. Claiming that he will remain faithful to Olivia, Orsino instructs Cesario, “Say my love can give no place, bide no denay” (II. iv. 136-137). Shakespeare foreshadows through Orsino that true love stays with the lover, as opposed to desire which has a tendency of having a short term of phase. Just as quickly as it starts, Orsino’s “love” for Olivia comes to a close when he realizes that Viola has true love for him in the

     Shakespeare's Twelfth Night examines patterns of love and courtship through a twisting of gender roles. In Act 3, scene 1, Olivia displays the confusion created for both characters and audience as she takes on the traditionally male role of wooer in an attempt to win the disguised Viola, or Cesario. Olivia praises Cesario's beauty and then addresses him with the belief that his "scorn" (3.1.134) only reveals his hidden love. However, Olivia's mistaken interpretation of Cesario's manner is only the surface problem presented by her speech. The reality of Cesario's gender, the active role Olivia takes in pursuing him/her, and the duality of word meanings in this passage threaten to turn the

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is a great piece of literature. It explores problems in society that still occur today. It is fascinating to see how the Puritans punished adultery then and the lack of punishment of adultery in our society now. It shows how all the characters affect Hester and what everyone does in the community. It shows that no one is exempt from any type of crime in that town. In Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, he analyzes the characters of Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale and Pearl.

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.

through his vanity is easily fooled into thinking it is he who she loves although

Sexual identity and gender norms were very clearly defined in Elizabethan times and are still very clearly defined in todays world and society. Women are presented as being more in touch with their emotions, being more dramatic and being less qualified to lead or be in charge of their own destiny, whereas men are often portrayed as being more rugged, hands on and very qualified to do all things simply because they are men. Emancipation is a relatively new term, even though, when Shakespeare was writing his play his country was governed by a female monarch. In twelfth Night Shakespeare explores gender norms, sexual identity and women’s abilities to be their own person, have their own opinions through Viola. This arguably creates a very feminist

     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.

The women in Shakespear's play: Twelfth Night, are all depicted as having power, comedic and being very emotional.

Comedy, in the Elizabethan era, often included themes of wit, mistaken identity, love, and tragedy, all tied up with a happy ending. These themes are prevalent in William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, a comical play that explores the pangs of unrequited love and the confusion of gender. Love is a powerful emotion that causes suffering, happiness, and disorder throughout the play. The play also demonstrates the blurred lines of gender identity, which ties into the modern day debate on sexuality and gender identity. The main characters in the play, Viola, Olivia, and Orsino are connected by a love triangle, each person pursuing an unrequited love. Suffering from love and the fluidity of gender are the prevalent themes explored throughout the play and intertwined with Viola, Olivia, and Orsino.

Much of the first half of the Twelfth Night is about disguised identities and general misconceptions about who is actually who. The play opens on a note of melancholy and death, Orsino grieving because Olivia refuses to love him and Viola and Olivia mourning the deaths of their brothers. It is following a shipwreck that Viola disguises herself as a male, ensuring that confusion will be part of the plot. The idea of masquerading as a member of the opposite sex is a familiar device and the “complications, artificial as they may appear, are an essential part of the play’s complete development.” (Travers 308) It is interesting to note that unlike other comedies such as “The Tempest”, Shakespeare does not create an older generation who prevent the young lovers from being together; instead it is the perplexity about gender and that keeps them apart. Sebastian, Viola’s identical twin, is the solution to all of the problems, though his appearance does add to it for a short while. Viola, dressed as Cesario, is mistaken for Sebastian by Antonio, and is asked for the money that he gave to Sebastian. However, this type of confusion adds to the comic nature of the plot as the audience is aware of the concealed identities. Order eventually comes from the chaos, disguises are shed and identities are revealed. The appearance of Sebastian ensures that the marriage will be possible for the main characters; Viola is free to marry Orsino and Olivia marries Sebastian, although she

Viola sacrificed who she was and expressing her love to Orsino so that she could create her voice in the world and be accepted in a dominate male society. Act one, scene two, lines 53 and 54, Viola says, “Conceal me what I am, and be my aid for such disguise as haply shall become.” She portrays her courage when she decides to disguise herself as a young man. She does not have to mask her inner bravery while dressed as a man, because it’s acceptable for a male to be openly courageous constantly, while Desdemona showed moments of her strength which I will discuss. Viola becomes “Cesario” and Olivia becomes infatuated with him because he is unlike any other man she has encountered. Act one, scene five, lines 296-298, Olivia speaks to herself after Cesario has exited, “Methinks I feel this youth’s perfections with an invisible and subtle stealth to creep in at mine eyes. Well, let it be.” Cesario acts as a close female friend would, because he is actually a female. He listens, cares, and makes Olivia a priority. I believe that this is Shakespeare’s way of convincing or proving to 1600’s men in the audience that if they show compassion and understanding toward women, young ladies will fall in love with them easier.