After only three days serving Orsino, Cesario has already become a favourite with Orsino. They become very close and Viola (Cesario) begins to fall in love with him. Unlike many of the other characters, Viola stays true to Orsino throughout the whole play, showing that her love for him is true and extremely deep. As Orsino thinks Viola is a man, she cannot tell him that she is in love with him.
Orsino asks Cesario to deliver his love messages to Olivia. She does so, but very reluctantly as she is in love with him and doesn’t wish for him to marry Olivia.
At this point Olivia is in morning for her brother who has recently died and intends to do so for seven years. She is a very confident character and thinks highly of herself. As soon as Cesario comes into her life she immediately breaks the vow of not coming out for seven years as she has fallen in love with him. This is an example of dramatic irony and is funny, as the audience know that Cesario is really a woman. Viola as Cesario and Olivia build up a close friendship and they relate well as Viola is really a woman, so she knows what to talk about with Olivia and knows a woman’s feelings. There is now a love triangle in the play. Viola loves Orsino who loves Olivia who loves Viola as Cesario.
Olivia says, ‘Cesario, by the roses of the spring, by maid-hood, honour, truth and everything, I love thee so.’ (III.i.134-136).
At the end of the play Olivia marries Sebastian, Viola’s twin brother, thinking he is Cesario. This shows that Olivia really doesn’t know Cesario all that well and can’t really love him.
Malvolio is a very proud character. He is extremely arrogant and thinks very highly of himself. Even though he is mocked quite a lot during the play, he still believes that everybody loves him. Maria as a joke, writes a letter to him pretending to be Olivia, telling him how much she loves him. Malvolio is now convinced that Olivia is in love with him and fantasises deeply of what it would be like to marry her and to be master of the house and have control over everything. This shows that he isn’t really in love with her, he just wants to look good and to be powerful, which is typical of his personality. When he sees Olivia after receiving this letter, he quotes lines from the letter to her and behaves very strangely.
Malvolio says, ‘Sweet lady, ho ho!’ (III.iv.17). ‘Remember who commanded thy yellow stockings’ (III.iv.43). Here he is saying how in the letter Olivia commands Malvolio to visit her wearing yellow stockings and to be cross-gartered.
We feel a certain pity for Malvolio here as he is making a complete fool out of himself and Olivia does not really love him in any way at all.
The relationship between Maria and Sir Toby is not really mentioned in the play. Sir Toby doesn’t show a lot of feelings of love and doesn’t really seem to be interested in it as much as many of the other characters. Throughout ‘Twelfth Night’, he is close to Maria as a friend and the couple never really come across as lovers until the very end of the play where they get married. Their close friendship seems to draw them together more than romantic love. They also have similar personalities because the two have a good sense of humour and joke around a lot. When it comes to love with Sir Toby, he doesn’t tend to go on about it like Orsino or show any kinds of deep feelings, he seems to prefer to either keep them secret or he may not feel very strongly about love anyway.
Another strong friendship is the one between Sir Toby and Sir Andrew. Sir Toby doesn’t always show it and likes to get Sir Andrew into trouble, like when he persuades him to challenge Cesario to a dual, even though he is a poor swordsman. Together they have a laugh and don’t take things seriously, so they enjoy each other’s company.
The relationship between Antonio and Sebastian is a strange one. When Sebastian was shipwrecked, Antonio took him into his home and cared for him. Sebastian was devastated at the loss of his sister and decided to wander into the world to see what the future would hold. Antonio became very fond oh him and didn’t want to lose him so he urged Sebastian to let him come on his journey. This shows how close the two became and Antonio did anything to protect him and also trusted Sebastian with his purse. Antonio uses strong, passionate words for Sebastian such as ‘jealousy’ and ‘desire’ suggesting that he feels a large attraction towards him.
Antonio says to Sebastian, ‘I could not stay behind you. My desire, more sharp than filed steel, did spur me forth’ (III.iii.4-5). He is saying that he cannot stay behind as he is so close to Sebastian.
There is a lot of confusion and swapping of feelings in Twelfth Night. I feel that the only true love is Viola’s love for Orsino as this is the only man she loves during the whole play and is the one she ends up marrying. I think Olivia seems to fall in love too easily as she thinks she can have any man. Also, Maria and Sir Toby seem to marry just for the sake of it as they are close and have no one else to really be with. Feste remains self-contained and is not driven by love or ever gets distressed by it.
In Twelfth Night, Shakespeare explores love with great detail and explains it extremely well. I think that his thoughts on love and the way in which he writes about all the tangles and confusion give a lot of interest to the play making it a great play to read and also act out.
