Explore how Shakespeare uses Dramatic Irony to Create a Humorous Situation in "Twelfth Night"

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Explore how Shakespeare uses Dramatic Irony to Create a Humorous Situation in “Twelfth Night”

 

Dramatic Irony is one of the main techniques that Shakespeare uses to make “Twelfth Night” a comical play of the Elizabethan times. Dramatic Irony is when the audience know something not known by one or some of the characters. The use of dramatic irony creates humour; this makes the play work well, allowing the characters relationship to work better.

During the Elizabethan time Sumptuary Laws were around, these laws told the people of the Elizabethan times what colour and type of clothing to wear depending on what class they were off. In Twelfth Night these laws are being broken by Viola and Malvolio, Viola is dressing up as a man and Malvolio is wearing clothes of a higher status.

Also during the Elizabethan times women were not permitted to perform on stage so their roles would have been done by young men. This would have worked well during that period as Viola is dressed as a man for most of the play and if a young man played her part the audience would have found it more hysterical.

In Twelfth Night there are many themes and one of them is love, this creates humour because the characters don’t really know who they are supposedly falling in love with enabling dramatic irony to form. Also love in this play is shown as a joke; this is because the characters are falling in love and most of the love is unrequited love such as: Malvolio loves Olivia but Olivia loves Cesario, who is actually Viola who loves Orsino, however Orsino loves Olivia. Throughout the play, this theme confuses the audience as characters love characters who don’t love them back.

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The relationship between the characters Cesario/Viola, Olivia and Sebastian allows dramatic irony to form. This is because Viola thinks that her brother Sebastian is dead, however the audience know that he survived the shipwreck and is alive. Though when Sebastian meets Olivia, the theme, Mistaken - Identity, comes into the play permitting more dramatic irony to form, this new use of dramatic irony makes the play more humorous.

Another use of dramatic irony that creates humour in the play is when Olivia is supposedly so madly in love with Cesario that she goes and begs Sebastian to get ...

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