‘Poor Lady, she were better love a dream,
Disguise I see thou art a wickedness’.
This is not the only way in which disguise is used in Twelfth Night, it is also used to create comedy. The Lady Olivia’s uncle Sir Toby Belch is always being foolish with his friends: Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Maria, the maid. Malvolio, Olivia’s steward is forever telling them to stop fooling about and Toby, Andrew and Maria take their revenge by playing a trick on him. Maria disguises her handwriting as Olivia’s as their handwriting is very similar:
‘I can write very like my Lady your niece, on a forgotten matter we can hardly make distinction of our hands’.
She writes a counterfeit letter to Malvolio stating that Olivia is in love with him when of course she is not. The letter also says that to impress Olivia Malvolio should adorn yellow, cross-gartered stockings which Olivia detests. Malvolio follows the letter’s advice much to Maria, Toby and Andrew’s delight and dresses in the yellow stockings. Olivia, unaware of what is going on thinks Malvolio is going mad:
‘Why this is very midsummer madness’
This trick would not have worked if the letter had not been disguised as Olivia’s.
Disguise also helps to create a further sense of comedy as the audience knows things about disguise that the characters do not. When Viola visits Olivia she hints that she is not what she seemed and as the audience we know that she is a woman but Olivia does not and does not catch on:
‘No my profound heart: and yet (by the very fangs of malice, I swear) I am not that I play’
Viola practically told Olivia that she was a woman but is afraid to say it directly as she is aware of Olivia’s feelings towards her. Only one person throughout the play shows an acknowledgement to the fact that she is a woman and that is Feste. He does not mention it to anybody else but he hints to Viola that he suspects the truth. He makes a joke out of the fact that Cesario doesn’t look very masculine:
‘Now Jove in his next commodity of hair, send thee a beard’
Throughout the play Viola gives hints to her true identity which creates comedy because the audience know what the hints mean yet the characters do not. The Duke asks of Cesario’s sister, which obviously Viola talking about herself but pretending to be telling of Cesario’s sister. Viola replies:
‘I am all the daughters of my father’s house,
and all the brothers too: and yet I know not’.
The physical disguise is Twelfth Night brings to light those who have mental illusions as to who they are. Malvolio, for example considers himself to be respected and is the first person to call other characters a fool when in fact the audience think of him as a fool. He says of Feste:
‘I saw him put down the other day, with
an ordinary fool, that has no more brain than a stone’.
Malvolio does not realise that other people believe him to be a fool and is quite arrogant towards the possibility that they could be right. The same goes for Sir Andrew Aguecheek. Sir Toby often persuades him to give him money or buy him drinks in return for him getting Olivia to fall in love with Andrew. Andrew does not realise that Toby is fooling him and using him to pay for his fun nights out.
Disguise is also used to separate those who have mental illusions from those who do not. Even though Viola is disguised she still knows who she is and where she stands unlike some such as Andrew, who even though not in disguise do not know who they truly are. Disguise is again used to point out to the audience who is considered to be foolish and who is not. Feste, the clown, acts like a fool for entertainment purposes and therefore everybody thinks of him as a fool. However, Feste makes comments about the other characters which help us to understand their personalities and how confused they are about who they are. Feste says of Olivia for mourning the death of her brother:
‘The more fool, Madonna, to mourn for your brother’s soul, being in heaven’.
During the play there is also the sense that there is something deeper and sadder hiding underneath the happy, joyful pictures painted of Illyria. At the beginning of the play a character called Antonio refuses to come to Illyria as he had been involved in a fight with the Duke Orsino previously and was scared of going back:
‘I do not without danger walk these streets.
Once in a sea-fight ‘gainst the Count his galleys,
I did some service, of such note indeed,
That were I ta’en here, it would scarce be answer’d’.
Feste also helps to reveal this throughout with songs about sadness and sorrow. One song in particular is an example of this:
‘When that I was and a little tiny boy,
With hey ho, the wind and the rain:
A foolish thing was but a toy,
For the rain it raineth every day’
There are other songs sung by Feste which reveal a darker side to the plot such as songs with lines:
‘Come away, come away death,
And in sad cypress let me be laid’.
Malvolio also promises revenge on those who played the trick on him and his last words symbolise parts of the darker side of Illyria:
‘ I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you’
Disguise is the main plot in Twelfth Night and without it the storyline would not have been possible as disguise was needed in order to create the Orsino, Viola, Olivia love triangle. This is the main event in the play which is created by disguise. Disguise is also used to bring in humour and confusion to the plot without which Twelfth Night would not be the notorious and famous play as we know it today.
