After all this, when Cesario has left, Olivia’s desire to see him and to find out whether he is Orsino in disguise or not, causes her to pretend a ploy to bring him back. She pretends that he had left his ring at her house while he had not done anything of that sort. She sends her steward Malvolio after Cesario to bring him back. When Malvolio finds him and tells him that he left his ring and so on, Cesario immediately realizes that there is a catch in this and also that it is a ploy pretended by Olivia to bring him back and gives a hint that she is falling in love with him. Olivia is in turn being tricked by Cesario rather than tricking him as he knows that it is a ruse.
Now we turn to the other characters from the main characters who, in one way of the other form the sub-plot of the play.
Sir Toby Belch is Olivia’s uncle who wiles his time away in gambling, drinking and cavorting .Sir Toby spends most of his time complimenting Sir Andrew Aguecheek who is a foolish knight. He does this so that the latter will continue to supply him with money for drinking and cavorting. Sir Andrew Aguecheek is in possession of 3000 pounds a year. Hence we can see the reason behind Sir Toby flattering Sir Andrew.
Sir Toby also makes Sir Andrew believe that Olivia is indeed recipient of the romantic overtures of the foolish knight. But, Sir Andrew is a fool and is the butt of all jokes as he also doesn’t realize when he is being laughed upon. The best example for this is the conversation between Sir Toby and Maria. While Sir Toby is talking to Maria, he is actually referring to Sir Andrew and Sir Andrew doesn’t realize this while everyone else does. Hence, by this time we know that both Sir Andrew and Duke Orsino are in love with Olivia while Olivia is charmed by Cesario’s (actually Viola) youth. Hence, we have seen how Sir Andrew is being manipulated to the fullest extent by Sir Toby both for fun and for his own benefit.
Now, we will see another incident also related to Sir Toby and Sir Andrew Aguecheek.
When Sir Andrew sees the favors being offered to the messenger Cesario over him, he is enraged and feels that his pride has been wounded. Sir Toby notices this and decides to have some fun by having a duel between Sir Andrew and Cesario. He doesn’t mean any harm and just wants to have some fun. He goes to each of them and tells them that each of them is waiting for a chance to kill the other. He tells both of them how dangerous the other enemy is. Towards the end of the act, they agree to have a duel. They meet, and when Sir Andrew charges at Cesario, another character Antonio interferes on behalf of Cesario (who he believes to be Sebastian, Viola’s brother). When Sir Andrew and Sebastian are about to fight, the duke’s officers come and arrest him. As a result, the pretended duel never seems to happen. Here we have seen how both Sir Andrew and Cesario (Viola) have been manipulated by Sir Toby into fighting each other.
Both these incidents portray Sir Toby as a highly intelligent person.
THE GULLING OF MALVOLIO
This part of the comedy is the best example for this commentary. Here, we see how Malvolio, Olivia’s steward becomes the butt of all jokes.
Malvolio is a man who likes to spoil others’ fun. This fun-despising attitude of this earns him many enemies. Fabian is the perfect example for this. He had been humiliated by Malvolio before Olivia and hence he decided to take revenge on Malvolio. Hence, he also became the part of the plan to humiliate Malvolio along with Maria, Sir Toby and Feste.
Malvolio’s pride and highly egotistical nature leads to his downfall.
Maria, who is highly intelligent, decides to take revenge on Malvolio by tricking him into believing that Olivia loves him. She writes a love letter in Olivia’s handwriting addressed to him. Malvolio reads the letter and is overjoyed as he actually believes that the letter apparently written by Olivia was addressed to him. He is also asked to wear yellow stockings “cross-gartered” and go to Olivia to woo her. The irony of the fact is that Malvolio expects to woo a Countess (Olivia) in that outrageous garb. After he goes to Olivia, he acts really weird and she presumes him mad and calls for a doctor to attend to him as Maria persuades her into thinking so. This is due to the drastic change in the attitude of Malvolio that is, from an insensitive wood-like person to a highly emotional person who is madly in love.
The audience fails to feel any kind of pity towards Malvolio at this point due to his attitude towards others previously. At that time, he was like a man who looked at the world thinking that he was Gulliver ( from Gulliver’s Travels) while the rest of the world was like Lilliput meaning that the whole world was diminished in stature in front of him.
As the doctor arrives, we see that it is actually Feste in the disguise of a psychiatrist who has come to attend to Malvolio who is presumed mad by Olivia. He decides to have fun with him by trying to trick him into believing that he is actually mad. When he tries to do so, we see that Malvolio is desperately trying to hold on to his identity and keeps refusing to believe that he is mad. It is at this point that we actually pity Malvolio.
Ina the above incidents, we have seen how Malvolio’s pride and ego was used against him to humiliate him.
We have also seen how disguise has been used to manipulate people in this comedy. But, the one that stands out is the gulling of Malvolio which shows that you should never be proud or egotistical.
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST
In this play written by Oscar Wilde, pride is shown most appropriately. Oscar Wilde uses pride to describe the society of that period. He tries to show that people married among their own class that is, people of the same class were supposed to get married. People lost pride in marrying off their daughter/son belonging to the upper class to someone of the lower classes. He also explains the importance of money and inheritance in marriage.
In the first act itself, we get a feel of the society. Oscar Wilde tells us through the first act that people used to gossip a lot during that period. In the first act, Lady Bracknell and Algernon exchange small talk about people of the upper-class. There is also a part where lady Bracknell exclaims over the lack of cucumber sandwiches. At this point, Algernon’s butler, Lane tells her that cucumbers were unavailable in the market while he knows that Algernon and Jack had finished the sandwiches. This shows a similarity between Lane and Maria from the play Twelfth Night written by William Shakespeare. Both of them are smart and quick to come out of tricky situations.
Then, we come to the part where Algernon take lady Bracknell into another room in an effort to give leave Jack and Gwendolen alone so that Jack can propose to Gwendolen.
Here, we see that Algernon talks to her about the music of that period. This shows the topics of discussion of those times.
When Jack proposes to Gwendolen, she tells him that it would be ideal for her to marry a person named Ernest. When he asks her if the name Jack would suffice, she explains that the name Jack has no music or vibration to it. She says that she finds that name really plain. We know that earnest means sincere. Hence, we can infer through the title that what Oscar Wilde is trying to tell us the importance of being sincere and truthful. We can also infer that all women want someone sincere as their husband when Gwendolen says that it would be ideal for her to marry someone of the name Ernest. After she accepted his proposal, lady Bracknell walks in and sees Jack on his knees. She describes this posture as “semi-recumbent” and calls it “indecorous”. This shows how proud the people of that time were. She then demands an explanation for all this. When Jack tells her about his proposal, she looks at Gwendolen and sends her off to the carriage denying the engagement.
In this play, Oscar Wilde portrays Lady Bracknell as the personification of the Victorian upper-class widow. Marriage is a process of careful selection and planning by parents. They look at Social status, parentage, and wealth for the marriage of their child. Lady Bracknell will tell Gwendolen when and to whom she will be engaged, and Gwendolen has nothing to say about it. Lady Bracknell interrogates Jack, commenting on his wealth. When she hears Jack has “lost” his parents, she exclaims at his “carelessness.” She suggests he produce at least one parent; no matter how he does it, so as to strengthen his chance to be the right man for Gwendolen. Absurdly, Jack says he can produce the handbag in which he was found by Mr. Thomas Cardew and asks her if that would suffice as a parent. She also asks about where he stays, and even how many bedrooms that house has! This tells us the importance given to wealth and property than to marriage.
This is the same case between Cecily Cardew (Jack’s ward and Algernon’s lover). Lady Bracknell gets to know that Algernon plans to marry Cecily and hence, she plans to interrogate her. She talks to her and seems to rejects her at first, but when she questions her about her inheritance and gets to know that it is a huge amount, she readily agrees to give her hand in marriage to Algernon. This portrays a typical upper-class widow who would look at the wealth and social status first rather than character.
Now we come to the manipulation part which happens as a result of mistaken identity or you can call it disguise. Both Algernon and Jack are leading parallel lives, in other words they are leading different lives and living as persons with different names in the town and the country. Jack tells us in Act I that he uses the name Ernest as an excuse to come to town. We get to know that he is actually known as Mr. John Worthing in the country whereas Ernest (his town name) is known to them as his brother. He uses the excuse of meeting his “brother” to go to town where he is known as Ernest. Hence, we see how he has been manipulating his ward into believing that he has a brother in town by using his parallel identity. He also tries to manipulate his lover Gwendolen into believing that his name is Ernest.
Algernon is also doing something similar to this. In this case, he has invented a brother called Bunbury who is known to everyone as an invalid. Here, Algernon uses him as an excuse to go and “dawn in the country”. When he comes to the country to see Cecily, he introduces himself as Ernest. He then plays along the part of Ernest who Jack has introduced as his brother. Cecily falls in love with him believing he is Ernest and this situation is like a knot which is difficult to entangle.
Both Jack and Algernon manipulate almost everyone in the play with the scenario of their parallel lives which Algernon refers to as “Bunburying”.
Conclusion
So, we have seen how pride, ego and manipulation have been portrayed in the plays Twelfth Night and Importance of being Earnest. In some instances, they have been used against them, whereas in other instances, we have seen how people who have been manipulating others are found out towards the end.
