Consider the ways in which love, obsession and disguise inform our understanding of the characters actions in Act 1 Scene 1, Act 1 Scene 5, and Act 2 Scene 5 in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.

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Phillip Taffley 4E

Consider the ways in which love, obsession and disguise inform our understanding of the characters actions in Act 1 Scene 1, Act 1 Scene 5, and Act 2 Scene 5 in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.

Love, obsession and disguise all play key roles in the actions of the main characters featured in Twelfth Night. Orsino is obsessed Olivia and with the idea of being in love, but this does not bring him happiness, but makes him melancholic. We see he is also quite a wise character as well at times, when he is giving advice to Viola. . “Then let thy love be younger than thyself, or thy affection cannot hold the bent: For woman are as roses, whose fair flower being once displayed doth fall that very hour.” He is a changeable character as we see from his opening speech, where his mood, which reflects his feelings about love, quickly changes. He also talks much about love but does very little.

Viola is affected by love and disguise throughout the play, from the point when she decides to disguise herself as a man. The first example of love we see is one for her brother Sebastian. We see that she is a practical and resourceful character when she says “Conceal me what I am … I’ll serve this duke”. She falls in love with Orsino yet continues to woo Olivia for him whilst showing him to have self knowledge and understand love properly.

Olivia is also affected by love and obsession throughout the play. To the same degree, she is an obsessive character, as we hear from Valentine that “The element itself, till seven years hence, / shall not behold her face at ample view” and her obsession for Viola. We can understand both these obsessions with the idea of love, that is, a love for her brother and father, and a love for Viola.

The only other character affected by love, obsession and disguise is Malvolio. He is obsessed with the idea of class and Olivia we see this when he says “To be Count Malvolio!” He is in love with himself, and disguises his feelings for Olivia.

         

Act 1 Scene 1 is mostly exposition. For example it makes the audience anticipate Olivia’s entrance when Orsino says “Her sweet perfections.”  But we also find out about Orsino’s idea of being in love and that he is obsessed to some degree.

The first lines of the play are by Orsino who is speaking in poetic verse. He says “If music be the food of love, play on /Give me excess of it; that, surfeiting, /The appetite may sicken, and so die.” This signifies him as a main character.

Orsino’s opening lines are complex metaphors as he is trying to gain control over love. He asks the musicians to give him “excess of it”, that the “food of love” will make him overdose and he won’t feel the need for love anymore this shows us that he is obsessed with love.

We see that he isn’t just the poetic lover, but the melancholic lover who isn’t really in love with Olivia but is in love with the concept of love. “The appetite may sicken and so die.” This suggests to us that Orsino doesn’t yet have self knowledge and sets up the play for somebody to show him how to begin to love.

Then after only a few lines he says “Enough no more! /’Tis not so sweet now as it was before.”

We see that he can sometimes be quickly bored. And that sometimes he is unpredictable and erratic in his behaviour as he is unhappy in love.

The Duke has asked for no more music yet continues to talk about love. “O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first, /Methought she purged the air of pestilence;” This suggests that he is obsessed with being in love with love and he is possibly obsessed with being melancholic.

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His speech uses images of disease and death “surfeiting … sicken … die.” This tells us that he doesn’t know what love really is and so uses his imagination.

Orsino links connection between love and imagination. “So full of shapes is fancy, /That alone is high fantastical.” And so raises the question, does the human brain create love merely as something to do or does love really exist?

When Valentine tells Orsino that Olivia is in morning for her brother for seven year Orsino reacts to it rather differently. Valentine says “A brother’s dead love, which she would keep fresh.” To ...

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