Key Overarching Ideas In Twelfth Night Essay

Key overarching ideas
In Act 1 Scene 1-3, Shakespeare “Twelfth Night” explores many thematic ideas such as disguise, love and rejection. In Scene 1, Shakespeare explores the idea of disguise and hiding through Viola’s manly disguise as well as Olivia’s withdrawals from the world through her veil. Due to Viola migrating to the land of Illyria, Viola decides that, in that case, she will disguise herself as a young man and seek service with Duke Orsino instead. On the other hand, Olivia withdraws herself from the world by wearing a veil, “She will veiled walk”, hiding her face after her brother died. Scene one also explores the idea of loss of loved ones through the connect Viola and Olivia share to do with losing their brothers. This foreshadows a connection between the two as they both share a very unusual trait in having “a brother’s dead love”. The final idea that Shake spear explores in Scene one is the unrequited love experience through Olivia who
is being chased by Orsino and Sir Andrew, even though she is trying to escape the real world and is not subtle in her dislike for men whom she despises at “the sight of men”.
In the second scene, the idea of love being real or just a cause of suffering is explored, which is a cause of the idea of rejection. Orsino, obsessed with the woman who keeps refusing him, wants only to lie around on “beds of flowers”, listening to sweet “music” and dream of Olivia. This exemplifies the reversal of gender positions and stereotypes as this would be seen to be more of a womanly thing to do. Orsino “seeking the love of fair Olivia”, is shattered by her prominent rejection as she decides to withdraw herself from the real world following the loss of her brother and father. The genuineness of Orsino’s emotions comes into further question when he later switches his affections from Olivia to Viola without a second thought; the audience then suspects that he does not care whom he is in love with, as long as he can be in love. This shows us that Orsino is not actually in Love with Olivia, but he is in love with the idea of being in love, demonstrated by his love falling like “cruel hounds”.
Scene 3 establish the characters of Sir Andrew and Sir Toby and explores the ideas of wealth and buying love as well as well as the true identity of some characters.
Shakespeare demonstrates how Money is not always the most important thing which Maria can also see - Sir Toby protests that Sir Andrew is a perfect match for his niece, because he is very rich and is also accomplished in music and languages, but Maria doesn’t care: in her view, Sir Andrew is a fool, a brawler, and a drunk. Even though “he hath the gift” to buy Olivia’s love, Maria can see past this as she notices Sir Andrews true character. Shakespeare also ironically give Sir Andrew the last name of ‘Agueface’, meaning ill or sick to look at, which Olivia finds to be true. Finally, Sir Toby persuades Sir Andrew to stay by complementing him and saying he has a good chance even though he doesn’t, saying Olivia will never “marry above her degree, neither in estate, years, nor wit,” foreshadowing her marriage to Sebastian who is below her so called
standard.
Images, Symbols and Motifs
In the twelfth night, Shakespeare uses lots of vivid imagery to engage the audience and help them paint a mental picture to be able to imagine the play better. In Act 1 Scene 1, Orsino describes his desires to lie upon “a bank of violets” whilst thinking about being in Love with Olivia. This use of imagery foreshadows a connection with viola who he ends up being with, due to the accordance with the similarity in word choice and he uses the specific “Violet” instead of just “flowers”. Orsino also describes Olivia’s “sweet perfections” whilst thinking about how much he is in love with her. He then uses the repetition of “sweet beds of flowers” to displays how he associates the image of flowers with love. In Act 1 scene 3, Shakespeare helps paint a picture of Sir Andrews true character by describing him in the manner he appears to be, “These clothes are good enough to drink in; and so be, these boots too: and they be not, let them hang”. By Using this imagery, it gives us an idea of the situation Olivia is in.
The main themes and motifs explored in Act 1 scenes 1-3 are love, withdrawal, disguise and identity. Orsino states that “music be the food of love, play on,” establishing how love has conquered him. His speech on this subject is rather complicated, as he employs a metaphor to try to establish some control over love. He asks for the musicians to give him so much music—the “food of love”—that he will overdose and not be hungry for love any longer. Orsino’s trick proves too simple, however; while it makes him tire of the music, it fails to stop him from thinking about love. Another connection with love is the optimism that both Orsino and Viola displays as he is optimistic that he will find love one day once and she is optimistic that her brother is still alive, once again foreshadowing the future. Shakespeare also explores the idea of identity as Most of the characters in Twelfth Night are in a state of identity confusion. Thematically, Shakespeare sets up the plays to actions to reinforce that identity will always be fragmentary and incomplete until one is able to love, regardless of whether one is loved in return. Finally the idea of withdrawal is explored through Olivia wearing her veil and isolating herself from society as she drowns in her own sorrows.