Twelfth Night- Abuse of power
The play twelfth night by Shakespeare was written in the middle of his career, ultimately in the year 1601. Most critics consider it to be one of its greatest comedies. Twelfth Night is about delusion, stupidly and ignorance, frustration, and the remarkable things that love can cause us to do and see. The play is the only play that was written by Shakespeare to have an alternative title, ‘what you will’. There have been critics of what the two titles mean but the twelfth night is considered to mean Epiphany or the celebration of Christmas on the sixth day of the first month. The festival was celebrated during Shakespeare days where everything was not left unturned which represents the chaotic world in the play. Among many themes like love, uncertainty, and many others, the theme of abuse of power is also majorly discussed. This essay focuses on the abuse of authority in the play twelfth night by Shakespeare.
Twelfth Night has a thick, complicated plot full of memorable characters, like many of Shakespeare’s comedies, particularly those written in the latter half of his life. Viola, who survived a shipwreck and was separated from her twin brother Sebastian, whom she presumes is dead, opens the play. Viola washes up on Illyria ‘s shore and falls for the sadness of the kingdom, ruler of lovelorn Duke Orsino. Viola portrays herself like a male servant Cesario as a way of getting closer to the Duke and thereafter when she is placed into service, she sends letters to object the love of Orsino’s, Olivia who was fasting to mourn the death of her dead brother and father. However, Olivia rapidly falls in love with Cesario, resulting in a complicated, sex-bending love triangle.
In the meantime, Olivia’s pompous and puritanical servant Malvolio adds to the complex web of affection, who both loves Olivia and sees her as a means of social advancement. Malvolio is pranked by a group of comic characters led by Sir Toby Belch, the drunken uncle of Olivia, and he is persuaded that Olivia returns his love. Malvolio is finally declared insane and locked up by a series of ever more cruel pranks. When Sebastian turns up alive, the confusion reaches its climax and marries Olivia, who mistakes him for Cesario. Theseario and Sebastian eventually come face-to-face, revealing the ruse of Viola. The play ends joyfully paired off with Viola and Orsino and Sebastian and Olivia.
As a fact, however, nearly all the characters in Twelfth Night in certain ways go beyond the limits of their social position. Take for example Maria who, in writing the letter to Malvolio, literally tries to sub-set her hand for Olivia’s, she says that ‘she can write your niece like her lady; on a forgotten matter, they can hardly differentiate our hands.’ It is in this act where Mary attempts to impersonate another of higher social status in almost the same way as Malvolio does. The fluidity of the “big P’s” she thinks in a fake hand signifies her desire for social fluidity in capital letters. According to Bianca Calabresi, through her ability to compose with both the upper and lower hands, Maria plays not only with the social role of the steward but also with her own. Just as the steward reads ‘MOAI’ to wrest an identity from the sequence of letters indicating a change in his servile and sexual status. Maria likewise forges a new social identity through her wrongly pinned letters. Nevertheless, cunningly, Maria stigmatizes Malvolio as the real nerd and gull of the play to move the dramatic emphasis from her presumptuous ambition to become the wealthy and influential countess.
It is difficult to ignore the indulgent actions of the Twelfth Night characters. Duke Orsino’s opening lines, “If music is the food of love, play on or give me excess of it, that, surfing or appetite can sick and so die” placed a focus on the excess means of fulfilling the desires of the body as well as the means of satisfying aesthetic desires. Twelfth Night, like many of Shakespeare’s comedies, is concerned with satiating desire. What’s special here is that certain characters are permitted to make their incredible desires a reality and others are prohibited by powers within the play. The master, of course, does not win the first object of his affection but ends up married to Viola, who eventually fulfills her desire to be partnered with Duke Orsino by assuming a submissive role. This abundance of indulgence is most clearly expressed in Sir Toby, and it is he who, with his first appearance of the play, calls into question the consequences of following an egocentric indulgence guiding principle: “I am sure that love is an enemy to life”. Although this is in itself problematic, egocentric indulgence is much more conducive to group dissolution when an explicitly defined class system – one that includes knights, dukes, clowns, and stewards – is superimposed on top of it.
It is clear in the play’s portrayal of Malvolio’s desire for wish-fulfillment, in an exaggerated sense of self for indulgence. Even though Malvolio appears to already enjoy a position within Olivia’s household as a trustworthy steward, he wants more, perhaps, some might say, even luxury – much like the rest of the characters involved in this holiday. Nevertheless, the inappropriate moral conduct of Orsino, Olivia, and Sir Toby when implemented by Malvolio is ‘perverted’. Some claim that Malvolio ‘s appetite for indulgence is unethical, and thus punished for his narcissism, but in reality, Malvolio has the same narcissistic delusion as Orsino, who is not punished, of course. At the end of the day, there is no fundamental distinction between Malvolio’s narcissistic withdrawal illusion into a world where he can be Count Malvolio. And the selfish retreat of Orsino into the Petrarchan Conventions and beds of Flowers. The appearance of a holiday provides the false illusion that anybody may partake in the intrinsic indulgence, but that is nothing but artifice because the laws of the class are still present. Indeed, the Christian sense of community itself can be viewed as an artifice if one recalls Sir Toby’s attitude at his entrance and observes Maria’s efforts to maintain a decorum illusion.
Many critics may challenge the claim that “economic rules are still present” in Illyria during this holiday, and it seems they don’t need to look any further for evidence than Viola. She appears to be the personification of social mobility and sexual androgyny, transcending explicit lines of socially defined roles. But in reality, her ease of mobility is predicated on the higher social status she starts playing with. Viola starts like Orsino, able to use her environment for her ends and the people therein. She tells the captain, “I’m going to serve this duke, or Thou’ll present me to him as a eunuch. In these words, “she highly denies subtly, the sovereignty of the captain, the possibility of a will opposition, the possibility of the captain being reluctant or unable to support her Hence her social mobility is a clear advantage of being a part of a higher class. Indeed, as Viola spends more time as Cesario, trapped in Duke Orsino’s subordinate role as servant, her language reflects her social descent.
Luckily for Viola, however, Orsino treats her as a social equal until her social status is exposed at the end of the play, declaring her to be her master ‘s mistress. After spending the entire play playing the servant ‘s role, Viola is instantly restored to her aristocratic place and the inherent reverence for this rank is immediately accorded. This is not the case with another character in the play who wants to cross social boundaries; due to his course, Malvolio’s desires to change his social standing are thwarted by forces within the play. Viola decided to go down, but Malvolio preferred to be Count Malvolio to move up.
Twelfth Night by Shakespeare is a romantic comedy and love is the primary theme of the focus of the play. Although the play promises a happy ending in which the various lovers meet each other and achieve wedded bliss, Shakespeare reveals that love can cause pain. Many of the characters tend to perceive love as a type of curse, a sensation that unexpectedly and disruptively strikes its victims. Different characters tend to suffer painfully because of being in love, or even because of the pangs of unrequited love. Orsino describes love doggedly at one point as an appetite he needs to fulfill and can’t; at another point, he calls his desires “fallen and cruel hounds. Olivia defines love more plainly as a plague she is suffering badly from. Such metaphors include an element of violence, depicting further the love-struck as the victims of some universe random force. Even the less melodramatic Viola sighs unhappily that, “My life is desperate for the love of my husband.” This desperation has the potential to result in violence as in Act V, scene I when Orsino tries to kill Cesario because he thinks -Cesario has forsaken him to become the lover of Olivia.
Olivia sends him a ring by way of Malvolio when she wants to let Cesario know she loves him. She later mistakes Sebastian for Cesario, giving him a precious pearl. The jewel serves as a sign of her affection in each case a tangible representation of her emotional commitment to a man who is truly a woman. The gifts, however, are more than symbols. Youth is purchased more often than they are begged or stolen, says Olivia at one point, implying that the jewels are almost intended as bribes that she means buying Cesario ‘s love if she can’t win it. They confined him in a pitch-black chamber while Sir Toby and Maria say that Malvolio is crazy. Darkness is a symbol of his supposed insanity, reminding him that the room is filled with light and that his inability to see is a result of his insanity. Malvolio flips the theme upside down. “I say that this house is as dark as ignorance, though ignorance was as dark as hell; and I say that no man has been violated like this. In other words, the darkness meaning folly is not with him in the house, but outside, with Sir Toby and Feste and Maria, who imprisoned him unjustly. In the Twelfth Night, clothes are used as a powerful tool. They can symbolize gender changes. Viola puts on male clothing to be taken for a girl and class distinctions. When Malvolio fantasizes about making himself a nobleman, he imagines the new clothes he would have. As Feste impersonates Sir Topas, he puts on the garb of a nobleman, while Malvolio, whom he fools, cannot see him, implying clothing has a strength that transcends its physical function
To conclude with, abuse of power and authority is seen in the play as the characters develop more and more into their roles. The play Twelfth Night, however, ends in pairs and restores social order that has been disrupted by Viola ‘s mobility. Both she and her brother are restored to their legitimate identities and married to characters of equally high social status. Maria marries Sir Toby, and so it can be assumed that she will rise to social class, but only to the extent that a woman can because she must be submissive to her husband. Although one may argue that this is progress by human effort, she can only marry a man who asks her to marry, so she relies on one of the higher social statuses to make progress and get married too.
Malvolio had then released and sent as a way of completing an order for his master Olivia as to let go, Antonio, despite his verbal commitment to achieve vengeance. And once again he the steward who is performing his duties. The vacation is over, and the social order is preserved. The play presents critiques of the structure of a social class in the form of comedy to reveal the absurdities of power and authority when it rests based on artifice and false ideology.
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