Twelfth Night

William Shakespeare’s multidimensional comedy Twelfth Night dismantles and obliterates socially constructed limitations regarding biological and assumed gender and identity, thus emphasising that nothing is certain, rather, a matter of perspective. The reader to an emphatic extent becomes an integral part of the way language forms and shapes the reality of the play. Therefore, language instructs initial perceptions and the foundational reality of the reader but not final perceptions and ultimate reality. Language constructs a character’s initial identity and reality, however, the reader’s reconstruction of a reality reflective of their own perspective is imperative to determine the final perception. The consistent blurring of the gendered identities of characters in Twelfth Night require the reader to meticulously interrogate their own ideas regarding the construction of biological and assumed gender and identity. Audiences are invited to further delve into the intricacies of the text to create their own meaning. Identity is the product of distinctive characteristics that are both biological and assumed, thus, it is the interplay between contextual notions of assumed gender and how this parallels with biological sex. Twelfth Night challenges the notion that gender is merely being in the state of male or female through androgynous characters such as Viola. If one completely disregards what they previously thought about biological and assumed gender upon beginning the text, it can enrich the depth of their interaction with the play. The ambiguous language in Twelfth Night is subjective and not limited to a singular meaning or context.

The reader must recognise their power to construct reality within the play and acknowledge that nothing is certain, rather, a matter of their own perspective of biological and assumed gender and identity. The title, ‘’Twelfth Night’’, acts as dramatic exposition regarding the absence of boundaries within the play. An ‘anything goes’