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How Does Love Misunderstood In Twelfth Night

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How Does Love Misunderstood In Twelfth Night
How is love misunderstood in Twelfth Night? Love is misunderstood in the play because of the foolish self-love, and infatuation that some of the characters portray in the play. When the foolish love triangle prevails that starts from Olivia, the foolishness brings a twisted comedy to the audience. It is easy to laugh at the foolish love and how love loses its meaning. Throughout the play the characters take love to the max, or have not truly felt or understand the meaning of love. The first misunderstanding shows Orsino is declaring his love for Olivia, and has never spoken a word and does not know who she is as a person. Orsino’s idea of love is given away at the beginning of the play when he announced “If music be the food of love, play …show more content…
His ego driven character creates many misunderstandings for others around him. Maria catches on to his behavior and wants to show him a lesson by playing a prank on him. Maria writes a letter pretending to be Olivia. Malvolio finds the letter, that appears to have no titled name for who the letter is for but of course a man like Malvolio who thinks so highly of himself thinks the letter is for him. He gets so caught up in his lust and follows through the letter word for word. Before the letter was placed Maria states “Observe him, for the love of mockery, for I know this letter will make a contemplative idiot of him” (II.5.39) Malvolio states “Besides she uses me with more exalted respect than anyone else” (II.5.39) Malvolio believes because that he is a servant and Olivia treats him well as a servant that shes in love and fancies him. Malvolio is in love with himself and only treats Olivia with respect and does not favor Olivias family, which makes him a fool, as well as when he thinks the letter was addressed to him. Furthermore, the misunderstanding of many different kinds of love brings the characters foolery into a comical and twisted scene, some learn their lesson through trial and error and others not so

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