The play starts in Illyria with the Duke Orsino talking of Olivia a countess he is supposedly in love with. We then are introduced to Viola and the captain at sea-coast of Illyria. Soon realising her brother is dead she dresses up and keeps a pretence of being a man. This is because without a male figure she would not have been able to survive as it was a patriarchal society and without a man anything could have occurred to an isolated, alone woman. We are then introduced to Sir Toby Belch who is a drunken uncle of Olivia's who wastes all his money on booze and lives of his niece Olivia. Maria a lady in waiting is also introduced and early on we get hints of a possible relationship between the two, this would have been extremely shocking within the Shakespearean audience as within this time this would have been unacceptable as if you were from upper-class who were expecting to marry within the same social status and social mobility was nearly impossible. The fact that there is a lot of craziness within the play could be because the play is called twelfth night which mean within the twelfth days of Christmas anything was okay but all of that would have come to an end on the twelfth night when the Christmas season and festivity would end. These two characters are comic relief characters who have a romantic storyline but are characters making the play more intriguing and least serious. Another character as such is Sir Andrew who is a foolish, idiotic man whose character uses a lot of malapropism perhaps to lighten up and make the play more funny.
