FREE ESSAY ON TWELFTH NIGHT: SOCIAL PROBLEMS

TWELFTH NIGHT: SOCIAL PROBLEMS

Twelfth Night
Ben Bonoma
As a comedy, Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, is not only meant to entertain its audience but
also bring attention to problems in society. One must let go of several realistic
concepts before they can truly understand Shakespeare's intentions. The audience must
suspend their logic to believe that so many coincidental situations could occur. They are
taken far away to a romantic land, where no penalties or consequences exist for practical
jokes and constant drunkenness. It is this incongruity compared with our, everyday
mundane lives that provides for the humor in this play. Humor is used to point out social
concerns, such as balance in one's life, and the not to judge based solely on appearance;
however, the humor is not blunt, but brought out by puns and subtitles and is meant not
to take away from the greater themes and morals of the play. Shakespeare has carefully
intertwined comedy and pain in both the main and the subplots to highlight the comical
situations of irony and coincidence and explore the social themes.
A balance in one's life is based around self awareness: something achieved through being
well balanced rather being excessive. This theme is developed from the opening were
Orsino proclaims his love for Olivia, "If music be the food of love, play on./ Give me
excess of it, that, surfeiting,/ the appetite may sicken and die" (I.i.1-3). The idea
that Orsino is in love with the idea of love, rather than the actual person is prevalent
here. He cares more for the association with something as intangible as love, rather the
person and the emotions that go along with love. Olivia is also a person of excess,
mourning her brother's alleged death for seven years, an action which appears more for
her sake rather than in actual despair of a loss such as death., "The element itself till
seven years' heat,/ Shall not behold her face at ample view" (I.ii.28-29). The audience
also sees an excess in Sir Toby's character with his drinking. This concern is brought
through Maria, "he's drunk nightly/ in your company" (I.iii.36-37). Malvolio is really
the big joke of play, or rather who the big joke is played on. The other characters are
able to pull off such a prank because of Malvolio's excess of self pride and self image.
He has too much pride to participate in the fun with Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Maria at
one of the late drinking parties. In fact he openly scolds them, taking pride in his
matureness and being respectful of Olivia, "My masters, are you mad...Is there no respect
of/ place, person, nor time in you" (II.iii.87,92-93), this however does not help out his
chances with her. The audience also sees that he regards himself very highly by his
reaction to Olivia's forged note, "She did commend my yellow stockings of late, she/ did
praise my leg being cross-gartered, and in this/ she manifests herself to my love"
(II.v.170-172). Through comedy, both verbal and physical, Shakespeare is trying to point
the need for balance in one's life by giving examples of who and what not to be. 
Another major theme in the play is not to judge solely on appearance. The first instance
of this is when Viola disguises her identity as woman to appear as a man, named Cesario.
With here disguise, she makes Olivia, the object of her master's love fall in love with
her, " 'I am a gentleman.' I'll be sworn thou art./ Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs,
actions, and spirit/ Do give thee fivefold blazon" (I.v.296-298). Also, she falls in love
with her master, Orsino, but cannot act on it because their culture did not permit
homosexual relationships (it is also questionable whether or not Orsino would've
participated in such a relationship has then been allowed). Olivia was only in love with
the appearance of her man. This is evident when she discovers that Viola is a woman, but
conveniently her brother (who she was disguised as) shows up to reep the benefits of the
previous interactions between them. Viola and Orsino's love is not as superficial as
Sebastian and Olivia's love. Once the societal barricade of homosexuality is relieved by
the unmasking of Viola, they can truly bask in each others love. This theme of disguise
raises questions about illusions, whether they be self-inflicted or not, and the
character's willingness to be blinded by the love or by the idea of love. 
Shakespeare uses comedy to bring out his concerns about society and how it acts towards
one another. The first theme is the theme of excess. In almost every character, we see
some type of excess throwing that character out of balance. This unbalance effects how
effectively the character can act to towards other characters and how he/she views
him/herself. The second theme is how society should not judge based solely on appearance.
This theme is echoed very vividly through Viola assuming another identity of a man. She
fools everyone with her "boyish" looks and Olivia even falls in love with her, refusing
to believe that she is anything but a man. Shakespeare is trying to evoke from the
audience to be fooled by such superficial things as looks, but to gaze deeper into a
person and see who they truly are.