Maria tries to get them to be quiet, but Malvolio is awakened by the noise, and comes down to berate them for disturbing the household. Once Malvolio leaves, Maria concocts a plan to make Malvolio look like a complete fool: since Maria's handwriting is similar to Olivia's, she will write love letters to Malvolio and make it look like the letters have come from Olivia. The party decides to try this out and see if it will work.
His soaring high opinion of himself allows him to believe what he wants to, because of this he misunderstands everything Olivia says. When she instructs him to 'go to bed' to sleep off his madness he believes she means to go to bed with her, 'I'll come to thee.' Olivia shows concern for her loyal servant and asks for 'special care' of her 'fellow.' He also takes these words the wrong way and launches into a great speech about how she recognises him as her social equal and 'fellow.' The scheme has succeeded to make Malvolio look completely foolish but the tricksters then begin to take things a little too far when they accuse him of being 'possessed.'
When Olivia departs the trick is rendered a success as Malvolio 'hath taken the infection of the device' and fallen for it. The audience is reminded of Malvolio's snobbishness, 'go off, I discard you.' This only encourages the kinsmen and servants pretend they believe he is a lunatic, possessed by the devil, 'bewitched' and attempt to convince Malvolio himself that he is mad, 'defy the devil.' They wind him up and pretend to be concerned by calling him childishly affectionate names like 'chuck' and 'biddy.' Malvolio senses that they are ridiculing him, and getting annoyed he almost stoops to their 'element' by telling them to be proud about all aspects of himself, to such an extent that he is greatly bordering on superciliousness. Overall, with taking into consideration the negative and truly objectionable aspects of Malvolio, it can be seen that he does in fact need to be taught a lesson about the downfalls of his disdainful ways. The fact that he is so totally self-satisfied, means that convincing him of another's love (i.e. Olivia's) is easy to achieve.
The letter written by Maria in 'Olivia’s' hand refers subliminally to each of Malvolio's character weaknesses and consequently ensures that he is fooled by its meanings. His vanity and value of appearance are both fed by the order to wear:
"Yellow stockings...ever cross gartered."
While his lack of humour and proposing his puritan lifestyle is his vanity. He also takes pride in his physical appearance "should she fancy, it would be one of my completion" which tells us that he thinks he is a person who is admired; he is generally happy with himself. When all of this adds up it can be seen he needs to be taught a lesson.
The revenge take the form of letter written by Maria in her lady's hand, convinces Malvolio that Olivia loves him. The letter also says that if he wishes to be with Olivia that he is to smile and wear yellow stockings, which are cross gartered.
Now if we look at the play we see why this was a very clever trick, Countess Olivia had just lost her brother and he used to wear yellow stockings. For example, in Malvolio's fantasies, and sometimes separate from their clothing as Orsino finds himself becoming increasingly closer to 'Cesario'.
Malvolio not only disguises himself on the outside, but at the same time he is asked to disguise his personality by coming before her smiling. Olivia is still in mourning at this stage for her brother and father, thus making his smiles even more out of place and bizarre to her. Maria flatters him in the letter by saying 'thy smiles become thee well'. This personality may be a disguise, although it may also be Malvolio's true character that he has been forced to oppress because of his situation in the house and status in society. The new-found confidence he is given in receiving this letter maybe instead of asking him to change his personality, is really letting him show his true self that he has been hiding behind a front of hostility. Malvolio may have been masking himself previously, and now he is given the chance to remove this guise. Maria also orders him to 'be surly to the servants' and 'opposite with a kinsman'. Olivia's kinsman is Sir Toby, so Malvolio takes this to mean that he is free to be rude and disrespectful of him, and thinks that Olivia wants him to do this to show his love for her. This is likely to only make her dislike him more- the point of Maria's plan.
The rest of the crew are hiding in the box tree and listening to every word he is saying about them. This does not encourage them to be lenient with Malvolio.
After witnessing Malvolio's egoistic fantasies, we can see why he is so easily duped by Maria's letter. Ironically the man who once put down the clown (Feste) is now becoming the clown himself as he reads out coarse puns:
"These be her very C's, her U's and her T's; and thus makes her great P's."
Malvolio is convinced that Olivia is deeply in love with him but doesn't know how to tell him. In the letter Maria makes Malvolio believe that Olivia is asking him to wear yellow stockings as a sign that he loves her, a style which she in fact detests. Even though these items are not usually included in Malvolio's sombre attire he is desperate to please the countess:
"I will be strange, stout, in yellow stockings and cross-gartered, even with the swiftness of putting on. Jove and my stars be praised!"
We must remember that Malvolio is still "a Puritan" who does not believe in love and happiness. He therefore convinces himself that it is the work of "Jove" that has brought this occurrence about.
