Twelfth Night & The Man in the Iron Mask

“The theme of mistaken identity and love as a cause of suffering are addressed in both texts. Choose one or both themes, and investigate how the themes are developed in “Twelfth Night” and in comparison to “The Man in the Iron Mask”?”

Love is one of the most popular themes of literature through out the age. The essay is written to compare how the same themes are represented in different situations and through the actions of different characters. It is the theme of both comedies and tragedies, and this is the case with Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and Randall Wallace’s version of The Man in the Iron Mask. W. Shakespeare, he made lots of comedies and tragedies. This essay is about one of his comedies, ‘Twelfth Night’. Also other story is ‘Man in the Iron Mask’ which is about time in Louis XIV, starring Leonardo di Caprio, whose theme of love is dark, evil and disastrous.

In ‘Twelfth Night’, it is very complicated relations between all the characters. In the story, Viola announced that she loves Orsino. (Act 1, Scene 1, line 40~41), “To woo your lady [Aside] yet a barful strife! Whoe’er I woo myself would be his wife.” But because she disguised as man and she knows that Orsino loves Olivia (Act 1, Scene 2, line 34) “That he did seek the love of fair Olivia,” so she was afraid of telling the truth. Also, Olivia liked Viola/Cesario, so her mind was complicated. Therefore, this situation becomes a love triangle and made them hopeless love. Also, there were Malvolio and Sir Andrew who loved Olivia but she didn’t like them. With these results, every character was suffered with loved.

However, their love is finally happy. Duke Orsino knows Cesario (Viola) is a woman and he loves her. So, Sir Toby married Maria, Orsino married Viola and Olivia married Sebastian (Viola’s twins). Also, there is love between Viola and Sebastian, when they reunited as brother and sister. Orsino knew Viola is a woman and he realised that he loves Viola, so he asked her to marry him. So finally story finishes happily.

Whereas, other story ‘Man in the Iron Mask’ shows love as hopeless love between D’Artagnan and Queen Anne, and Christine and Raoul. They loved each other but the condition couldn’t help them. To contrast with ‘Twelfth Night’, their love is hopeless. Also, ‘Man in the Iron mask’ shows love to their sons. For example, the truly love to Raoul by Athos, when Raoul died because of Louis’ greed of Christine. Other love is tragic love of Queen Anne to Phillipe. She prayed such a miracle for Phillipe everyday. Also, there was the love of D’Artagnan to Phillipe even he knew Phillipe was existed (to Louis) “I’ve never asked for myself...But, please spare the life for your brother.”

On other side to ‘Twelfth Night’, ‘Man in the Iron Mask’ finished with tragic love. There was unrequited love from Louis to Christine and cause her suicide. Also there was love of D’Artagnan that he sacrificed himself to save Phillipe because he loved him “Even I could give up my king, I could not give up my son.” Also, D’Artagnan loved Louis (to Phillipe) “Phillipe, He is your brother.” When D’Artagnan says his last word “All for one, one for all,” it showed the love of his friends. Contrastively, we can find the different love between ‘Man in the Iron Mask’ and ‘Twelfth Night’.

Comedies, such as Twelfth Night, are written for giving the audience entertainment. In contrast, tragedies, such as the Man in the Iron Mask, are written show history and legends. Both stories are from the same era in the 1600’s. Although the both texts are different, it seems that both texts have same meaning to give audience meaning of love.

Reference:

Shakespeare, W, 1601, Twelfth Night, London (England)

Gibson, R, 1993, Twelfth Night, Cambridge

(Movie) Director Randall Wallace, 1998, the MAN in the IRON MASK,