Gender In Twelfth Night

As it was stated earlier in this essay, Act 3 Scene 4 exposes in Twelfth Night, as in numerous other plays by Shakespeare, a number of comparisons between an upper cast of characters, such as the masters and nobles, with a lower cast of characters, such as the servants. The way these set of characters are parallel in the plot implements a comic contradiction which may be further reinforced through the costumes these characters wear.
Twelfth Night was a popular Holiday that happened every January 6th as a festival of Epiphany and the celebration of the last remaining day of twelve days of Christmas. During Shakespeare’s life, Twelfth Night represented the end of a time of seasonal festivities in which dances, party gatherings and banquets
were given and performances took place to temporarily displace the traditional social order to allow the participants to release the tensions that has been building up through the years. In this performances, usually a king of mischief was crowned and the traditional roles played by society, such as master and servant, were swapped.
The festivities of the contemporary world, such as Halloween, play on a similar function because on these days people temporarily lose their identities by wearing costumes to pretend to be someone else. This festive holiday night may have been the possible influence for Shakespeare writing this play and naming it Twelfth Night. (Mabillard).
Twelfth Night has a theme of a changeable social class that reoccurs throughout its entirety.
This theme is played out by characters such as Malvolio who is always patronizing the lowly servants as he dreams of marrying Olivia and raising to nobility by becoming a count. This theme of changing classes is also played out by Viola, whose disguise proposes that class, just like gender, is a relatively changeable part of a human being that can be experimented with by acting a certain way and by changing the type of clothes a character wears.
Shakespeare here is portraying what Alsop, Fitzsimmons and Lennon, centuries later, have written about gender in the gender theory, that it is a social construction. (2002). If it is that easy for Viola to change into Cesario, just by changing her clothes and her manners, then gender or even social class are not concrete ideologies that individuals are inherently born with.
After a few incidents of mistaken identity towards the end of Act 3 Scene 4 to Act 4 Scene 1, the proceeding scene opens again at Olivia’s house. Maria and Toby have just imprisoned Malvolio inside a dark chamber where he is supposed to heal from his madness. At the exterior of the chamber Maria tells Feste, her clown, to dress up with a gown and a beard she has bought, to act as the great scholar, ‘Sit Topas’
(4.2.1-2).
This particular part of the scene brings the audience’s attention to the theme of performance.
The costumes changes make these characters act as if they are in a role-playing game and creates a performance-within the-performance which creates the illusion that the audience of Twelfth Night are simultaneously watching two plays. Shakespeare in this scene reminds the audience, through these role-playing games that Maria fools Malvolio with, that, like the characters, each individual member of the audience may sometimes also play different roles in their own lives and are likely to also play around with the lives of others by pretending to be other
people.
For the remaining three Scenes of Act 4, Sebastian concisely becomes the central character, however his presence does not make a significant impression on the audience. He does not claim his place in the play as his own because he is simply there to contrast with Viola, his more engaging twin sister. The audience has seen more of Viola than they have seen Sebastian and so the audience sympathize more with his sister.
Sebastian is in a state of confusion that is understandable to the audience. He has just landed in a country that he has never been to before but he is ringed by people who appear to know him and who want to both kill him and love him. After averting the emphatic Feste and being bombarded by Andrew, Sebastian is left asking in confusion “Are all the people mad” (4.1.23). Later on, in line 56, after Olivia approaches him, he is left wondering “Or I am mad, or else this is a dream” (4.1).
This allusion to insanity is of significance as it is when Antonio and Malvolio also make reference to it. Shakespeare makes a suggestion that this madness, of which the characters assume are suffering from, plays an important role in adding to the comedy of the play. Only the audience know the truth of this chaotic confusion, therefore they take pleasure in watching the characters mad state of mind.
In Act 4 Scene 3 Sebastian starts to recognize his position. He concludes that the sun before him is real, as is the air he breathes. “Yet ‘tis not madness” (4.3.4). He reasons that if Olivia is mad, then her servants would not obey her, so then she is rightly sane. Nevertheless, he knows “There’s something in’t that is deceivable” (4.3.20-21). He is on the right course to the truth but he is yet to discover what this deception is.
In meantime, the theme of madness in mistaken identity is suggested in another angle in the changing remarks between Feste and Malvolio. In Scene 2 of Act 4, Feste tests himself in disguise by enacting both the voice and speech pattern of the curate. However there is something very outlandish in this part of the scene with his disguise because Feste is wearing a priest’s robe which is unnecessary to fool Malvolio because he is locked in a dark room and Malvolio cannot see him. Thus, as with Viola’s disguise in male garments and Malvolio’s dream of being covered in nobleman’s clothing, Shakespeare adds to the argument that this essay has already suggested. That identity and clothes can change the personae of a character and these two elements of the play allow the actors who play these characters to play a role-playing game within a play that they are already playing or acting in.
Feste makes use of a strategy of confusion on the downtrodden Malvolio, by telling absolute lies to persuade him of his insanity. Feste tells Malvolio, ‘then you are mad indeed, if you be no better in your wits than a fool” (4.2.84-85). The audience here are fascinated with by Feste’s ingenuity and persistence however they are soon left asking if Feste’s ability to lie is working on Malvolio.
Malvolio is now seen, from this point of the play, as a pitiful character. He embodies a character of sobriety. This is an occasion in which a character does not have to rely on change of clothes and manners to become another form of being. Malvolio causes a moral change on the audience which then causes them to view him in a different light and as a different character.
Contrasting this scene is Sebastian’s soliloquy in Act 4 Scene 3. The setting of these scenes reflect the mentality of Malvolio and Sebastian. Both men are certain that they have not gone mad and the setting reflect their psyche. Sebastian is in a sunlit garden which depicts his hope of finding the truth and Malvolio is imprisoned in a dark room that portrays his hopelessness in proving his sanity. However Malvolio is still fighting this darkness with his words and remains hopeful just as Sebastian does.
To conclude, Shakespeare has undeniably used the conventions and devices of romantic comedy to suggest different themes combining with one another to add a comic quality to Twelfth Night. This essay has suggested the significance of role-playing games in bringing attention to the foolery of the characters in the play passing as other characters. This role-playing is influenced by the character’s change of clothes but it is also possibly affected by the audience’s change of perspective bought by the changing of a character’s situation.