Act 1, scene IV shows us the developing relationship between Orsino and Cesario. In another useful improbability, we find that, after only three days, Cesario has become a great favorite of the duke. As Orsino’s servant Valentine tells Cesario, “If the Duke continues these favours towards you, . . . you are like to be much advanced”. In the same conversation, Valentine assures Cesario that Orsino isn’t fickle that he remains constant in his love. Since we have heard Orsino’s flowery speeches about Olivia in Act I, scene 1, we may question how sincere or steady his love really is, an uncertainty that grows as the play progresses.
Regardless, the way Orsino talks to Cesario makes it clear that Orsino likes Cesario very much and his language is closer to that of romantic love than that of ordinary friendship. “Cesario,” he tells him, “Thou know’st no less but all. I have unclasped / To thee the book even of my secret soul”. Clearly, Orsino already seems to be attracted to Cesario in a way that defies our expectations of how male friends interact with one another.
During act 2 scenes I and II It comes as no surprise to any reader of Shakespeare’s comedies that Sebastian, Viola’s twin brother, has turned up alive. His reappearance and resemblance to his sister (who, as we know, is currently disguised as a man) sets the stage for later mix-ups and mistaken identities. Continuing from act 2, and Sir stay up late drinking in ’s house. appears, and Sir Andrew compliments the clown on his singing. Both noblemen encourage Feste to sing another song. While he sings, enters, warning them to keep their voices down or Olivia will call her steward, , and tell him to kick them out. But the tipsy Sir Toby and Sir Andrew cheerfully ignore her. This is another comedic scene where the audience are involved in the play, they know how idiotic Sir Toby are being and realise how they are disregarding Malvolio’s requests so easily.
The dialogue between Orsino and the disguised Viola in Act 2, scene IV further develops the curious relationship between Orsino and his seemingly male servant. Their discussion of the relative power of men’s and women’s love is one of the most often-quoted passages in the play. Orsino states “As love doth give my heart; no woman’s heart So big, to hold so much. They lack retention” Orsino speaks these words as he discusses his love for Olivia with Cesario. Here, he argues that there can be no comparison between the kind of love that a man has for a woman and the kind of love that women feel for men. Women, he suggests, love only superficially in the “palate,” not the “liver,” implying that for men love is somehow deeper and less changeable. While his love is constant, he states, a woman’s love suffers “surfeit, cloyment, and revolt”. However this is where the significant use of self- delusion is brought up, as his apparent eternal love for Olivia is more superficial as his attention quickly draws to Viola at the plays dramatic ending. The complicated ironies built into the scene in which the audience knows that Cesario is really a woman in love with Orsino but Orsino remains unaware add both a rich complexity and a sense of teasing to the discussions, even as the seeming hopelessness of Viola’s position adds a hint of excitement. Still, one cannot find her perseverance too pathetic the audience knows that the play is a comedy, in which romantic love must lead to married happiness. However, we have already heard Orsino’s comments to Cesario in Act 1, scene IV, praising Cesario’s female-like beauty, so we know that Viola’s disguise has not entirely prevented Orsino from being attracted to her.
Orsino’s claim that men love more strongly than women was common in Shakespeare’s day, but Viola eloquently refutes it. In a very crucial passage, she tells Orsino about how her fictional sister “pined in thought, And with a green and yellow melancholy She sat like patience on a monument, Smiling at grief”. . . leading to Orsino’s question “But died thy sister of her love, my boy?”. This question is appropriately left open: we do not know yet whether Viola will die of her love for Orsino, and so she can only respond, cleverly, “I am all the daughters of my father’s house, / And all the brothers too; and yet I know not”. We, like Viola (and like Orsino), must wait to see how this tangle of desires and disguises will unravel.
Self love or (egotistical love) and self – delusion also play a key role in the play and are seen in both the main plot and sub-plot. Although Orsino and Olivia don’t realise it, they both show major signs of self love and self - delusion throughout the play. At the beginning of the play Olivia makes a vow that she will not look at another man for 7 years out of respect for her dead brother – “The element itself, till seven years’ heat”, this however is quickly turned around as she is so easily able to unveil herself to Cesario and falls in love with him therefore deluding herself into believing she would actually not look at another man for seven years. Orsino is similar in the sense that he is always speaking of love in such a poetic and deep way, “That breathes upon a bank if violets..”, yet when the play comes to it’s dramatic ending, he is so quick in switching his apparent undying love to Cesario. It seems that he is not in love with Olivia personally but merely in love with the idea of love, therefore deluding himself with fickle nonsense. These actions are echoes of self love and deceit of ones self and others around them. This is also the case for the comically acclaimed Malvolio who feels so strongly that Olivia is in love with him, his arrogance works against him. This idea is given to Malvolo by Sir Toby Belch, Maria, Feste, and Aguecheek. The gullingof Malvolio is linked to main plot in the obvious sense that it deals with a variety of love, namely, self-love, a self-interest and a refusal to see anyone as important other than oneself. Such arrogance, as in the case of Malvolio, leads to a misconception of the world and a total vulnerability to being manipulated so easily, as Malvolio does, by trusting that one's desires match the reality of the situation. Malvolio is punished and is relatively easy to punish because he is so wrapped up in his own importance that he sees no value in anything else or anyone other than himself, along with his secret desires for social advancement and power, make him easy to tempt into ridiculous behaviour. Malvolio, in other words, is a egotisitcal, a person with no sense of humour and with no place, other than what he thinks is important. Everyone (other than Malvolio) recognizes this. Olivia tells him he is sick of self love, and Sir Toby Belch roars at him some of the most famous lines of the play: "Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?". This quality in Malvolio makes him, the character most at odds with the comic spirit of the play.
In conclusion during Act V this long scene concludes the action of the play. A few at a time, the play’s main characters enter until they are all in the same place at the same time, and the various confusions and deceptions can finally be resolved. Of course, the ultimate climax is the reunion of Sebastian and Viola their meeting unravels the major deceptions and conflicts of the play. Many people in Twelfth Night assume a disguise of one kind or another. The most obvious example is Viola, who puts on the clothing of a man and makes everyone believe that she is a male. This disguise causes great confusion, as a bizarre love triangle results in which Viola is in love with Orsino, who loves Olivia who loves Cesario, the male identity that Viola takes in the play. The moment before the climax, significantly, is the most complicated moment in the entire play for Viola, at least in terms of how everyone understands her identity. Just before Sebastian’s entrance, Viola, in her disguise as Cesario, is surrounded by many people, each of whom has a different idea of who she is and none of whom knows who she actually is. Sebastian’s entrance at this point effectively saves Viola from her identity crisis. We might think of the scene as showing Sebastian taking over the aspects of Viola’s disguise that she no longer needs to wear. It is Sebastian whom Antonio has really been seeking, Sebastian who has really married Olivia, and, in the end, Sebastian who is actually male. Thanks to her brother’s assumption of these roles, Viola is free to cast off her masculine disguise. First she casts it off through speech, as she lets everyone know that she is really a woman, and then through deed, as she talks about putting back on her women’s clothing, or “maiden weeds”, but even once the truth about Viola’s womanhood comes out, the uncertainty that her disguise has raised remains. For instance, Orsino’s declaration of love to Viola is strangely phrased. Continuing to address Viola as if she were male, he says, “Boy, thou hast said to me a thousand times / Thou never shouldst love woman like to me”. The ending is not simply cut and dry, and entirely happy. Although Orsino closes the action of the play with an optimistic statement about the "golden time" they are all about to enjoy, the play ends with a prologue song by Feste that mars the possibility of a completely happy end. Though this play is a comedy, with a great deal of light hearted wordplay and amusing situations, the audience must remember that the play, like life, is bittersweet; some people come to happy endings, other people do not.
By Nima Sasani, 11E Mrs. Howell – English Literature
