Sam's Mini-Analysis on Twelfth Night

Samantha St. Claire

Prof. Flack

Eng 6

13 October 2012

Absurdity and Madcap Fun

Everything in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is made topsy-turvy in the realms of gender and social order. Simply by changing her clothes and attitude, the high-class Viola becomes the servant boy, Cesario, to Duke Orsino, who is in love with the stubborn Lady Olivia. Through a crazy sequence of events, Viola finds her male persona loved by both Olivia and Orsino! Taking a look at the rest of Olivia’s household, we find the social order questioned, mocked, and very unstable. Sir Toby, though a noble knight, is a drunkard who has drank his money away and seeks to suck extra funds out of the foolish Sir Andrew. Malvolio, though a servant and greatly annoying due to his superior attitude, has more prudency and sense than the examples of the higher class around him. Amazingly, the clown, Fente, who congratulates himself on his own wit when he says, “Well, God give them wisdom that have it; and those that are fools, let them use their talents” (I.v.13–14), is the most intelligent and sensible character in the whole household.

Some order is restored at the end of this absurd situation, but the curtain closes on many unanswered questions and dilemmas. As many imbalanced-class homoerotic undertones as there were in the play, the conflicts are resolved with multiple same-class heterosexual marriages. Orsino marries Viola but was originally attracted to the lowly Cesario, leaving us wondering if he’s ultimately satisfied with the woman that is Viola. Olivia accidentally marries the twin brother of her lover, leaving us to ponder if she actually got what she wanted or if the aspects of the female Viola that attracted her will be lacking in the male Sebastian. Antonio’s obsession for Sebastian is crushed when he finds himself married to Olivia. The noble Sir Toby and the servant Maria get married, which is the only marriage here between two different classes (besides the fact that, of course, Sir Toby is broke). Ultimately it is the annoying, lowly servant Malvolio who keeps his head in this revelry. He insists that he is not mad and declares the house to be “as dark as ignorance” (IV.ii.46) while Sebastian finds himself swept up in it and wondering, “Are all the people mad? […] Or I am mad, or else this is a dream” (IV.i. 26, 68). The audience throws their hands into the air in regards to what truly makes a man a man and a woman a woman, and what actually determines social status.

This play seems to serve to critique and question the gender and societal norms of Shakespeare’s England and yet at the same time uphold them. Shakespeare was perhaps trying say that everyone should pair up with those on their own social level, because even those who try to marry below their class will always end up marrying within their own class anyway, even by accident! He does not portray homoerotic relationships ending happily ever after, and Ladies do not run off with servant boys. However, he very obviously conveys his ambivalent views towards this structure by showing how social order and gender norms are not as cut and dry as it seems. If a girl could be a boy by exchanging her “woman’s weeds” (V.i.271) for male clothing, and if a steward thinks he can change his social status simply by dressing the part with a “branched velvet gown” (II.v.44-45), then anyone can truly be anyone. If it does not come down to intelligence and noble character, does social order and gender norms all shallowly come down to what you wear and to whom you were born?