Viola and her brother Sebastian were on a ship when a huge storm came in and destroyed the ship. Viola found herself onto the shore of Illyrian where she thought she lost her brother. She decided she was going to disguise herself as her brother and find a job to get money. She then disguises herself and changed her name to Cesario and goes to seek work for Orsino the Duke. Orsino tells Viola to “address thy gait unto her”(act 1, scene 4, line 16). This shows Orsino having Viola go to Olivia’s servants and tell them how sorry Orsino is for Olivia and to express his love towards her. Viola then finds herself falling for him.
Viola meets with Olivia and tells her that she is there to express Orsino’s love to her. Olivia tells Viola “your lord does not know my mind. I cannot love him” (act 1, scene 5, line 259). This explains how Olivia feels about all this. She send Viola back to her lord telling her that she does not love him back as he knows nothing about her and does not want anything more of him. Olivia says to herself as Viola leaves “thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions and spirit, do give thee five-fold blazon: not too fast: soft soft! Unless the master were the man. How now! Even so quickly may one catch the plague?” (Act 1, scene 5, line 43-48). Olivia is surprised how she fell in love with Cesario so fast, as he only came to express the Duke’s feelings for her. The love triangle is now in place, Viola loves Orsino, Orsino loves Olivia, but Olivia loves Cesario(Viola). Everyone is in this mess and miserable.
Sebastian, Violas brother and Antonio, his friend who cares for him since the incident with the ship have now reached Illryia. Antonio is sexually attached to Sebastian as he follows him to Orsino’s kingdom his old enemy. Simultaneously, Olivia’s kinsmen challenges Viola to a duel and Sebastian happened to appear at that same time. Olivia sees this all happening and asks Sebastian to marry her. Sebastian all confused as he never seen this woman before agrees and marries her. The next day, Viola and Orsino go to Olivia’s house as Olivia introduces Cesario as her husband thinking he was Sebastian. Sebastian then walked in and everything was revealed. Viola and Sebastian were reunited again and Orsino realized he loves Viola as she was now a girl and asks her to marry him. Orsino says “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” (Act 5, scene 1, lines 27-30). Its ironic how Orsino still calls Viola “Cesario” after everything is revealed. He is still getting use to that she is now a girl and questions if he loves Viola or Cesario.
The Twelfth Night is a comedic play written by Shakespeare. It expresses a love triangle between Viola/Cesario, Orsino, and Olivia. Viola loves Orsino, Orsino loves Olivia, Olivia loves Cesario. At the end, they are all happy as Olivia marries Sebastian who is Viola’s brother. Orsino asks Viola to marry him as that now everything is revealed.