Many of the plots are brought to an end in the play, but one significant plot is left on a cliffhanger that will never be concluded. It is Malvolio’s sworn revenge. Many people would be left with the feeling of wanting to know what that revenge is.
Malvolio, out of all of those in the play who have fallen in love, is the only one who is not brought together with the one he loves. Instead he is left with an explanation that the girl he thought loved him doesn’t, never has done and never will, with no one else he can turn to.
Malvolio loses his pride and dignity and leaves what was before the trick, a happy life. He doesn’t have any friends and in a way he receives very little compensation in comparison to what he has been through. All together it gives what the audience would assume to be a happy ending an unsettling feeling.
This, however is not the only loose end left at the end of the play. Another is the sudden disappearance of Sir Andrew. He, like Malvolio, is left with no one to love and no one to love him back. He leaves having been betrayed by his friends and people he trusted having been turned down by someone he hoped to love and with no friends. Left in much the same position as Malvolio, we see that although initially Sir Andrew’s part and character in the play do not seem to be as badly off as Malvolio, in the end his story is left to be forgotten and ignored so that we have an uneasy feeling about what his life is then like and left with absolutely nothing to compensate for this unlike with Malvolio where the audience it is at least sworn revenge.
To get to this conclusion at the end the last act of the play most of the characters find themselves having to go through some painful times in order to sort things out. Because the climax of the play is in this scene the storyline here cannot be happy. In most cases the characters need to go through a painful period to make this climax exiting as well as a means to sorting things out.
For instance, Olivia has to go through a mentally traumatizing time when she believes that Sebastian and Viola/Cesario are just one person, Cesario, her husband. She therefore begins to think that the person that she married is very two faced because she is seeing Sebastian's personality and Viola/Csario's personality at different intervals in a very short space of time. This effect is to bring some comedy into what could easily be seen as a serious situation. Some of the time she thinks that Cesario is kind, giving and caring husband when in fact he isn’t Cesario at all but in fact is Sebastian. At other times she thinks that Cesario is mean and unloving when in fact this side of whom she believes to be one person is Viola. This happens when she is told she married Olivia and being, of course, not in the slightest bit interested.
Another character that goes through a mentally painful time because of exactly the same confusion as Olivia is Orsino. In this act he discovers that the girl he was in love with has now married a person who he was not only friends with but that person worked for him. He also wasn’t told about this marriage but simply found out by mistake. This makes him very upset and angry. He, you can tell in the play, becomes very distressed by this privately and for some parts of the scene he takes this anger out on other Characters.
However the only person that comes to mind that actually had a physically painful as well a mentally painful time during this last act of the play is Antonio. He is captured by Orsino’s guards when he is trying to speak to Viola who he believes to be Sebastian. Orsino does not like him and the audience are given the impression that the guards treat him violently and roughly. For the most part of the act we also get the feeling they intend to carry on treating Antonio on this way. It is not until almost all of the Problems are sorted out that the audience is given the impression that everything turns out all right for Antonio too.
In my opinion though Malvolio situation is not dealt with very well in this, the last scene. Not only is this particular part of Malvolio storyline not very well concluded but also the small part of it that does come to a conclusion is not very good either.
Malvolio is never really ever given a proper apology during the play and is never given proper compensation. Most of the audience would assume that Olivia would actually apologize profusely to Malvolio even if it weren’t her that has actually played the trick. Instead she gives a very un-meaningful apology to him and almost ignores him. She doesn’t offer to help him get his revenge on the tricksters and the general attitude is that Olivia is still almost blaming Malvolio for being mad still even though he was never mad in the first place. Malvolio then leaves, only swearing revenge upon the tricksters and the audience do not know whether the revenge that he got was any good and whether he actually, in fact, does get his revenge anyway.
I think that Malvolio situation in the concluding scene is very unfair. You get the feeling that there is still some resentment there from people thinking that Malvolio was mad. People are left feeling very sorry for him. They are left feeling very insecure about him and the general attitude towards Malvolio has changed a lot when you look at the beginning of the play, when you think that Malvolio was the most secure and level-headed person that is part of the play. This almost gives an element of surprise to the whole story; especially the last scene when you realize quite how much Malvolio has changed since he has been imprisoned.
Feste’s closing song in the play is appropriate because although at first the song does not seem to relate to the play in any particular way it has a hidden meaning in the song that does relate to the story line. In Feste’s song he tells us how, when he was a boy toys were foolish but in his eyes adults were not and they were respected by him. This part relates to the beginning of the play when the characters never knew better and were ignorant almost to the ways of the world. It is almost saying that they did not really know what love was and how it can affect someone’s life.
In the second verse of the song Feste tells us about how, when he grew up he started to learn about life. He learnt to stay away from the bad people “knaves and thieves”. This relates to as we see all the characters and Violas disguise. We also see the love triangle starting to form and how everyone is gradually becoming confused. Showing us how the characters are not as perfect as we first thought them. The Characters in the play are however still doing stupid things because they have not become wise enough in the ways of the world to know any better.
In the third verse tells us how when he got married he couldn’t carry on by doing silly things and getting away with it, instead when he did these things, he would get caught and his plans would not work as well. This relates to when things start to get confusing. For instance, when the trick is played on Malvolio and people are trying to declare their love for other people. It is telling us that although to begin with all the tricks and disguises seemed very harmless and could not affect anyone things soon start to go wrong. This is where the characters are in a lot of trouble with a lot of problems that they never thought of when they first thought of their plans at the beginning of the play.
The fourth verse tells us about how when he was at the very end of his life people were still as stupid as they had always been but, while he was in old age he no longer was part of this stupidity or respected the stupidity but looked down on it realizing that people were stupid. This verse relates to the end of the play when everyone is gathered together on the last scene and the problems become more confusing before, finally being sorted out. It tells us how, in this last part of the play, the characters have become a lot wiser throughout the play and have learnt their lessons and are regretting what they have done. Even though things are eventually sorted out everyone in the story has become wiser and maturer because of what they have done.
In the last verse though Feste is simply telling us that everything is all right in the end. He is bringing the song to an end, this of course relates to the ending of the play. The last line of his song though “and we’ll strive to please you every day” I think also relates to the unfinished parts of the play. By using that line it is giving the audience a feeling on more to come, much like they got with the unfinished endings of the play.
So, in conclusion. I think that Feste's epilogue at the end of the play is appropriate as it gives us an overview of how the characters mature, learn their lessons and change throughout the play. He does this by showing some of the ages of man and how stupid things that people do are thought of in prospective. These views then relate to how much the characters have learnt so far and how much they have matured. By the end of the play though we know that they have all learnt from their mistakes and have matured a lot between the beginning of the play and the end of the play.