Throughout the play Feste and Malvolio show their characters to be very different. The largest difference between them is that Malvolio shows himself to be a strict puritan (at least on the outside) whereas Feste is, in every way, against puritanical beliefs. He says that he takes ‘pleasure in singing’ and puritans believed that this was sinful. He also enjoyed the ‘midnight revels’ with Sir Toby and Sir Andrew, which was also seen as sinful, by the puritans.
In my opinion, both characters are very interesting, and without them the play would lack a great deal of comedy and interest. Malvolio is a character we love to hate, he is just so awful that you just have to laugh at him. His pride and vanity add some of the comedy as it makes him very hypocritical because both pride and vanity, were definitely not encouraged by the puritans, and yet he criticised others when they went against that type of beliefs. He complained about Sir Toby and Sir Andrew for having fun by saying ‘have you no wit, manners, nor honesty, but to gabble like tinkers at this time of night?,’ however, later on in the play he did not mind dressing up in yellow cross-gartered stockings, and smiling constantly, when, supposedly asked to do so by Olivia. At this point he has probably become the biggest fool in the play, as although Feste’s job description is that of the fool, he ‘wear[s] not motley in [his] brain.’ This means that although he is a jester he does not think like one.
Feste could actually be the wisest (or one of the wisest) characters in Twelfth night because ‘nothing that is so is so’. The main part where he shows this is when Olivia says ‘take the fool away’ and he says that they should take Olivia away. He persisted by saying:
Feste: ‘Good Madonna, why mourn’st thou?’
Olivia: ‘Good fool, for my brother’s death.’
Feste: ‘I think his soul is in hell, Madonna.’
Olivia: ‘I know his soul is in heaven.’
Feste: ‘The more fool, Madonna, to mourn for your brother’s soul being in heaven. Take away the fool, gentlemen.’
I like the way that Feste is able to outwit people. He manages to use words to suggest different meanings so that he ends up being right and others end up being wrong. One example of this is above. Feste even describes himself as a ‘corrupter of words’ rather than Olivia’s fool.
Malvolio seems to represent everything that Shakespeare disliked at that time. At the time the play was written the puritans were trying to have all the theatres closed as it was supposed to be sinful. Malvolio was seen as a killjoy, just as Shakespeare saw the puritans. This shows that Malvolio must have been designed to be disliked. This is, in fact, one of the reasons why I do like him, Shakespeare created a character so easy to dislike that I enjoyed disliking him. He has so many faults, like being ‘sick of self-love’, that he is a very entertaining character. If he had not been ‘sick of self-love’ he would have not believed that the letter was written for him and so the whole prank could not have occurred, and so his faults cause him to be very entertaining. This is rather incongruous as it was supposed to be Feste, who was the most entertaining character, as he was the jester, but, in fact, he was a much more serious jester. Feste manipulated words rather than entertained and even when he did sing it was mainly for his own pleasure. He also seemed to play the role of narrator in some parts. For example at the end of the play he concludes. He sings that even though the life of jesters, actors and humanity is quite lonely they all ‘strive to please’ you (the audience). He even seems to like to please when in the play (when he does not acknowledge the audience) as he says that he takes pleasure in singing and entertaining. He sang at the ‘midnight revel’, which was another thing that he enjoyed and he also sang for Orsino even when he should not have done so, because Feste’s mistress was the lady Olivia. Feste does have a sad side of his character, although we never find out why. For example at one point, when he is asked to sing a love, he chooses a sad song. This sad side also helps the audience to like him more as they are generally better able to relate to someone who is not cheerful for every moment of the day.
Both characters have their faults though. Malvolio seemed to have many more than Feste but Feste still has some. Feste is a loose-living character and his enjoyment of the ‘midnight revels’ shows this. It is also shown by the fact that he does not seem to stay in one place as he travels and is shown singing for Orsino, and not in Olivia's court. He can also be very spiteful and this was shown through his resentment towards Malvolio after his early remark about his wit – ‘infirmity, that decays the wise, doth ever make the better fool’ and ‘I marvel your ladyship takes delight in such a barren rascal’ this leads Feste to take his revenge by convincing Malvolio, even further, that he has gone crazy, through his disguise as Sir Topas. Yet I think that if Feste did not have a small dark side he would not be as interesting. I think that Shakespeare realised that most people like to watch characters that are not perfect, so that they feel better about themselves or that they can compare to, so Shakespeare made his characters with faults. I also think that he meant to teach the audience not to be too much of a ‘killjoy’ as it may come back to get you, and also that jokes should not be taken too far.
Malvolio has many faults. He has too much pride and vanity. He is able to deceive himself too easily, due to his vanity he convinces himself that it is quite believable that Olivia could love him. He is also extremely gullible and not nearly as clever as he believes himself to be (which Feste noticed before) which then causes the prank to be as effective as it is. Another fault of his is that he does not seem to learn from his previous actions and their consequences. He shows this when he says that he will be ‘revenged on the whole pack of [them]’ even though it was his attitude, like this that caused the other to play the prank in the first place. These faults make up most of his character and make him very entertaining to watch, especially the yellow cross-gartered stockings bit.
In my opinion both characters add a great deal to the play and even though one was meant to be disliked, I liked both a lot. This was partly due to their faults and partly due to their attitudes towards others and their situations. I believe without either character the play would have been missing a great deal and would not have been as enjoyable.
