Abstract This paper examines how the play "Twelfth Night" by William Shakespeare, is concerned essentially with deception on various levels. It looks at how although deception is often a comic device, in this play it is often a means of deepening the ideas, allowing the audience to explore gender and sexuality, mainly through Orsino and the Viola/Cesario plot.
From the Paper "With the part of Viola, Shakespeare immediately presents the idea of gender confusion and interchangeability between the sexes. When the play was first performed, the cast would have been entirely male, so by the end of the first scene, the audience is aware that we have a boy playing a girl who is playing a boy on the stage. These levels of ambiguity suggest that gender roles will be important. Shakespeare then continues to explore this throughout the play, through the character of Cesario (Viola in disguise) and his relationships with other major characters such as Orsino and Olivia. Orsino sends Cesario to seduce Olivia on his behalf, and, unfortunately for the duke, Olivia falls in love with Cesario. The reasons for this are dramatised at the end of act one, scene five. Olivia asks Cesario to explain what he himself would do if in Orsino's position of lust towards her, so effectively asking his opinion of Orsino's technique and encouraging him to imagine that he loved her himself."
Abstract This paper studies Viola, the protagonist in William Shakespeare's comedy "Twelfth Night". The paper examines Viola's disguise as Cesario, focusing on the themes of self indulgence, disguise, self deception and identity. The paper also looks at how Shakespeare uses the comedic vehicles of disguise and mistaken identity to make Viola an even more intricate character.
From the Paper "Viola is a young woman born into aristocracy whose ship is wrecked in a storm, causing her to wash up on the shore of Illyria. Believing that her brother, Sebastian, is dead, Viola disguises herself as a young man who she names "Cesario" and becomes a page to Duke Orsino. Viola falls in love with Orsino, while Olivia, the woman Orsino is courting, falls in love with Cesario. Hence, Viola finds that her clever disguise has trapped her, as she is unable to tell Orsino that she loves him, and she is also unable to tell Olivia why she, as Cesario, does not and cannot love her. Viola's predicament is the central conflict in the play."
Abstract This essay will argue that Shakespeare's use of this device in "Twelfth Night" is much more complex and significant than in "Comedy of Errors", as it is central to the theme of blurring gender roles in the play. As will be seen, Viola's transvestite impersonation of the male Cesario creates a site of gender confusion that challenges our understanding of the major characters and, in a broader sense, subverts the audience's certainty as to the nature of love and the permeability of gender lines.
Abstract This paper reviews the play 'Twelfth Night' by William Shakespeare with a special focus on the relationship between the characters Cesario, or Viola in disguise, and Maria, Lady Olivia's lady-in-waiting.
From the Paper "William Shakespeare's middle-period comedy, 'Twelfth Night', is one of several plays he wrote that deal with mistaken identity, gender, and facade. In the play, young Viola, a girl who has high social status by birth, is involved in a shipwreck and must survive in a new and strange world with only her wits and her wiles. Viola disguises herself as a boy, Cesario, and finds employment and shelter with a wealthy nobleman, Orsino. Finding herself falling for Orsino, Viola also finds that her new employer is smitten by a fellow member of the aristocracy, Lady Olivia, who in turn falls for "Cesario," who she does not realize is young Viola. One of the interesting relationships in this play is that found between Viola and Olivia's young lady-in-waiting, Maria."
Abstract The paper discusses Viola's presentation of gender in "Twelfth Night", which implicitly challenges the strict binary gender system that prescribes different and opposite behaviors for the two genders. The paper shows how the character of Viola stands in stark contradiction to long-standing prejudices about the weaknesses and frailty of women. The paper also points out, however, Viola remains a victim of the prejudices of her society, in that from her own perspective, she continues to see women as frail.
From the Paper "In Twelfth Night, Viola and Sebastian are twins, but they are separated in a storm at sea. Viola adopts male garb, and the name Cesario, as a survival strategy - to enable herself to get a job working for the Duke Orsino. Thus, Violet is not explicitly making a statement about gender when she begins passing as a male - rather, she is simply making a statement about wanting to survive. However, the necessity for her to adopt this strategy does of course arise from the strict sex-based segregation of the times. Despite the fact that Viola does not intend to buck the binary-gender system in any way, she certainly seems to enjoy "being a man," and moreover, the fact that she adopts a male persona inevitably leads to gender-based complications. For example, the Countess Olivia falls in love with her, while "Cesario" falls in love with Duke Orsino, and "Cesario" is challenged to a duel by the jealous Sir Andrew. Viola's gender switch thus lays the foundation for much of the plot. However, despite being a plot device, it also makes it possible for Viola to present an alternative representation of gender."
