The most perceptive characters in Twelfth Night are the best at fooling others. How far would you agree with this statement?

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‘The most perceptive characters in Twelfth Night are the best at fooling others.’ How far would you agree with this statement?

        The humour in Twelfth Night focuses around the concept of mistaken identity and deception. Viola, in her guise as Cesario, is the cause of much confusion as various characters mistake her for her brother Sebastian; the minor characters spend much of the play pulling a cruel prank on Malvolio. It is intriguing how much Shakespeare tells us about the characters of Twelfth Night by the ways they view and trick each other, and indeed themselves.

        Orsino has us paying attention from the very start of the play. Within seven lines of the opening, we already know that he seems to be a capricious character, from asking the musician to ‘play on’ to deciding that ‘Enough, no more/’Tis not so sweet as it was before.’ The faux finality provided by this couplet makes the reader consider to what extent Orsino means what he says, including his professed love for Olivia. Does Orsino really love Olivia, or is he just enjoying the feeling of being a rich romantic, madly “in love”? The way that Orsino is not able to see what he really is, gives us little hope of his ability to see who he really loves – Viola, which we can see from his rapid, no nonsense redirection of affection – “Let me see you in thy woman’s weeds.” The fact that Orsino has dropped all the romance and “passion of loins’ from his new courtship with Viola suggests that he has realized the folly of his “love” to Olivia; an insight that is almost out of character.

        Olivia, unfortunately, appears to undergo no such personality transition. She appears thoroughly unperturbed upon the revelation of her marriage to Sebastian and not Cesario, and indeed makes it seem as though she deems the two interchangeable. However, looking back at Olivia’s first meeting with Cesario, she does not quite conform to our expectations of a woman “till seven years’heat/Shall not behold her face at ample view’. Continually plaguing Malvolio with queries - ‘What kind o’man is he?’ , ’Of what personage and years is he?’, she reveals her boredom with the mourning persona she has created for herself; already she is wondering whether the ‘divinity’  this young ambassador brings is worth giving up her carefully crafted character for. She, in a way similar to Orsino, is in love with the idea of being the target of Cesario’s love, explaining her rapid change of feeling. Olivia fools no one but Orsino in her disguise, even befuddled Malvolio does not see Olivia as so unattainable as to soliloquize about her. Orsino and Olivia are the romantic couple of the play, in personality if not in plot. They remain misled, unwitting, by the rest of the cast until the revelation at the end of the play.

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        Maria and Sir Toby are the orchestrators of the antics surrounding Malvolio and Sir Andrew in Twelfth Night. They are a rarity in Shakespeare’s works; few Shakespearean couples seem to be so suited for each other while also having no obstacles to their relationship. Toby declares that he ‘could marry this wench for this device’, referring to her ingenious forging of the prank letter for Malvolio. The letter is perfectly designed to humiliate Malvolio, who is trapped, almost as Olivia, in his role as the stiff, uptight butler, by forcing him to deny his personality – ‘he does smile his ...

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