Sign In
Ask Question
English
Caleb Vaughn
29 June, 04:52
What is the subject of the twelfth night
+2
Answers (
1
)
Michaela
29 June, 07:58
0
Answer + Explanation:
The subject of the Twelfth Night is, I guess you could say, love and identity.
Identity
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.
Mistaken Gender Identity
One level of identity confusion in Twelfth Night is gender identity. Viola embodies this confusion when she assumes the identity of a boy, Cesario. Of course, in Shakespeare's time, all female roles were played by boys, so in this case a boy actor plays a woman character (Viola) who dissembles herself as a boy (Cesario). In a patriarchal culture, sexual difference is held to be an immutable law; traditional gender role behavior was based on a natural biological fact rather than social convention.
The indeterminacy of Viola/Cesario's sexual identity would show that maleness and femaleness were just aspects of a role, qualities that are learned, not immutable physical traits. When Cesario and Sir Andrew face each other in a duel, it is revealed that both are acting the role of being a man. The biological fact of Sir Andrew's maleness is obsolete. Both characters are pretending.
Love and the Self
Shakespeare, especially through Olivia, gets to the heart of the relationship between self and love. When we fall in love, we almost necessarily lose our self-composure, cease to be able to see our actions with our own eyes. Yet even though Olivia fears that her attraction to Viola will come to naught, she is willing to risk it, because love, or at least intense attraction, allows her to leave her "mind" behind and give herself up to fate.
The Danger of Love
In Twelfth Night, love is seen as similar to death, because both prose a threat, or at the very least, a challenge to the singular self that is afraid of change. To be able to love another requires that one must accept change, to accept that one cannot entirely control one's fate, or even one's will. The very language that one uses to communicate with another may end up demanding more, or at least differently, than what one intended.
The characters in the play that cling to a singular sense of self that does not allow for change are often the ones for whom change happens most violently. Malvolio is the most notable example of this, but Orsino, too, although he claims to be open to love, is, beneath all his high rhetoric, deeply afraid of any mutual love relationship. In some ways, it's much easier for him to pine for Olivia and send middlemen to woo her, precisely because it flatters his ego to feel he loves more than she loves him back.
Comment
Complaint
Link
Know the Answer?
Answer
Not Sure About the Answer?
Get an answer to your question ✅
“What is the subject of the twelfth night ...”
in 📙 English if there is no answer or all answers are wrong, use a search bar and try to find the answer among similar questions.
Search for Other Answers
You Might be Interested in
I understood why my body always felt like a prison when I learned I was made of cells. Which correctly explains the pun in this sentence and the word or words on which it is built?
Answers (1)
What are the wedding plans in frankenstein?
Answers (1)
Which story premise is most clearly a classic tragedy? A. Heavy rains flood a musician's basement, ruiting his equipment. B. Jesse tries his best to restore an old car, but the thing won't run. C.
Answers (1)
What does O'Neill reveals in the exchange between the steward and the ben? How does this first scene set the mood, or atmosphere, of the play?
Answers (1)
8. Of what did Harry dream on his first night at Hogwarts? Chapter 7 Harry Potter
Answers (1)
New Questions in English
What did Usher do as an attempt to ease his mind in "The Fall of the House of Usher"?
Answers (1)
What's the main idea of amendment X from bill of rights
Answers (2)
Write a note on elements of wit and humour in three men in a boat
Answers (1)
What size is a standard margin?
Answers (1)
Question 10 What does every complete sentence include? O two predicates a subject and a predicate two subjects a predicate and an object
Answers (1)
Home
»
English
» What is the subject of the twelfth night
Sign In
Sign Up
Forgot Password?