"Discuss some of the ways in which Shakespeare entertains his audience in Twelfth Night"

Authors Avatar

“Discuss some of the ways in which Shakespeare entertains his audience in Twelfth Night”

One of the main themes throughout Twelfth Night is that of confusion and mistaken identity. This is illustrated mainly by Viola as Cesario, confusing all of the characters into thinking that she is a man. The only people that know of her true identity (apart from the sea captain at the very beginning) are the audience. This makes it more enjoyable and entertaining for the audience as they know exactly what is going on and can see the comedy in the plot as it thickens. This links to the other main theme of the play, that of entertainment and comic characters. This is illustrated through Sir Toby Belch; who is quite clever and enjoys playing tricks on people such as Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Malvolio who are less intelligent and more unaware of their humorous characteristics.

The scene in which Sir Toby and Maria trick Malvolio into thinking that Olivia is in love with him is a good example of a humorous and entertaining scene.

“Observe him, for the love of mockery, for I know this letter will make a complete idiot of him”

Malvolio, although he is a servant, often looks down on Sir Toby as if he is better than him.

“Is there no respect of place, persons, nor time in you?”  

Join now!

This is obviously one of the reasons that Sir Toby dislikes Malvolio and enjoys playing tricks on him, but is also an example of the hierarchy being turned upside down. This is something which Shakespeare’s audiences would have associated with twelfth night, a time of misrule and abandonment of the rules, of fun and confusion. These are all highlighted throughout the play, meaning that the audience would have been able to connect the title of the play to the events in it, something today’s audience would find harder to do. Audiences would have gone into the theatre expecting a humorous ...

This is a preview of the whole essay