Malvolio's Identity In the play Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare

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Michel Figot

January 16 2003

Block B

Malvolio’s Identity

In the play Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare creates a plot in which the relations are sabotaged by the characters and their disguises. Question of identity prevail in the most of the main characters in the play, like viola/Cesario, who work to achieve their goals. This gives place to a romantic tangled up comedy, where love blossoms and a structured ending occurs. The misunderstanding trickery leads to love between people who naturally are not supposed to be together i.e. Viola/Olivia unrequited love. The malice of some characters leads to the downfall of others. This produces a great deal of chaos with the emotions and social standings of characters like Maria, Olivia and Viola. For example, Malvolio an efficient, hardworking steward, who fantasizes with the idea of becoming a nobleman by marrying his mistress, Olivia. The joke played on him leads Malvolio to attempt evasion of the customary rules of the social hierarchy by pretending to be someone he is not.

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Malvolio is portrayed from the beginning of the play as an arrogant, disillusioned man with false self-importance. The audience gets a glimpse of his being Puritan a killjoy when he enters the room and begins to chastise the knights, even though they are higher than he is in the social scale and for that they are superior to him. He accuses them of being “mad,” of acting like “tinkers” who have “no wit, manners, nor honesty.” (II, iii, 87) His observations point out that he believes they are behaving like commoners and that he behaves better than they do, or ...

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