Twelfth Night Essay

Come in closer. In order to truly understand the complexity of this novel, you need to learn to read between the lines. There’s much more to this story than meets the eye. The book the Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare is a novel about mistaken identities, satire, and intimacy. The protagonist Viola is a woman who dresses like a man in order to serve the Duke Orsino. But she soons falls in love with him. This is a difficult love to pursue, as Orsino is still in love with the Countess Olivia, and more importantly Orsino thinks Viola is a man. This love triangle creates much tension in the kingdom of Illyria, but fortunately the novel has many comical characters to relive the story of its tautness. We have Olivia’s drunken uncle, Sir Toby;
The main protagonist impersonates a man to be closer to Orsino. Throughout the story, Viola tries to divulge her true feelings, while still trying to dissemble her true identity. This quote represents Viola as she tries to let Orsino know her true feelings while still hiding her identity, “To well what love women can feel for men. Actually, their hearts are as sensitive and loyal as ours are.” (Act 4. Scene 4.) In this passage, Viola makes up a sister to purge herself of her feelings for Orsino. She did this to free herself of her feelings, without disclosing her true identity to him. I believe that she wanted Orsino to catch on to her declaration of passion in hope that he had the same affection towards her. The book is filled with people hiding their true feelings towards one another. Hiding your feelings leads to conflict and distress, especially in The Twelfth Night. The plight Viola finds herself in is that she has all these unaccounted feelings for Orsino, but she can’t act on them because her semblance is one of a man’s.. Like in this scene, you may not understand the objective of the characters through their actions. If you look closer, by putting yourself in their shoes, you will see the true intention of these