Explain how Shakespeare shows Malvolio in the play in Act 2.

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Perlie Mong

Explain how Shakespeare shows Malvolio in the play in Act 2.

In Act 2, Malvolio appears to be arrogant, puritanical and malicious. In this scene, he tries to stop Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and Feste from being so noisy in the middle of the night.

When Malvolio enters the stage in Act 2 Scene 3, the first thing he does is asking a series of five rhetorical questions. This is quite a powerful blaming technique, suggesting that he thinks highly of himself and believes that he has the right to tell Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and Feste off, even though the social status of Sir Toby is higher than his. He asked them, “Have you no wit, manners, nor honesty?” ‘Wit’, ‘manners’, and ‘honesty’ refer to ‘judgement’, ‘breeding’ and ‘decency’ respectively. The fact that he asks them this question rhetorically suggest that he thinks that he has better judgement, breeding and decency than them, emphasizing his arrogant nature, which can be quite irritating to the audience, especially when they know that Sir Toby and Feste are likely to be cleverer than him. Moreover, he thinks he has better ‘breeding’ than them, as they are not behaving themselves properly; however, his rudeness and pomposity prove that his ‘breeding’ is just as bad as Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and Feste’s.

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The first rhetorical question he asks is, “My masters, are you mad?” ‘Mad’ suggests that what they are doing is absolutely foolish and unacceptable, especially when his tone is so serious, but in fact, they are only singing and drinking, which are not really ‘madness’, even though they are not behaving properly. He then describes their amusement as ‘disorder’ and ‘misdemeanour’, which are exaggerations again, as they refer to serious misbehaviours. This shows that Malvolio is puritanical as puritans believe in a lifestyle without any indulgence at all and they see any wrongdoing ten times worse than it really ...

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