Twelfth Night
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- Category: English: Plays
- Date Submitted: 05/22/2014 10:22 AM
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William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night
William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, is a rich comedy delving into the innate human desire for love. Shakespeare uses these characters merely as vessels for a larger insight into society as a whole. No person wants what they can truly have, but rather, what they cannot. Shakespeare conveys a cryptic portrayal of romance where his characters are masochists and shows how love can blind and act so impulsively to satisfy an innate need. By ending of the play with three weddings Shakes pear sends the comments that love has no boundaries.
When the reader is first introduced to Duke Orinso, he is accounting the first time he laid eyes upon the lady Olivia. Through the use of language, the Duke speaks of a love that he wishes he could be full of and die away, “If music be the food of love, play on Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting The appetite may sicken, and so die” (Act I, I, 1-3). The Dukes case seems to be self indulgent, and gains enjoyment from being overdramatic. From the on set of the play, he gives off the impression that he knows he will never obtain the love of Olivia, but he enjoys wallowing in self pity, and encouraging others to be sympathetic to his situation as well. In a separate speech, the Duke refers to his desires for Olivia as “my desires, like fell and cruel hounds, E'er since pursue me (Act I, I, 20-24). It seems as though love or romance for him is a game, rather than an emotion to be taken seriously. Throughout the rest of the play, his pursuance of Olivia never ceases, and at one point the even threatens to kill his own servant Cesario because of Olivia’s mistaken thinking that Cesario was the man she had just married. With that threat from the Duke, this comedy could have potentially been turned to tragedy. The Duke never once elaborates on the finer feelings for Olivia, he merely pines over her in a superficial way, and had Olivia given in to his persistence, the Duke would have gained a trophy...
William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, is a rich comedy delving into the innate human desire for love. Shakespeare uses these characters merely as vessels for a larger insight into society as a whole. No person wants what they can truly have, but rather, what they cannot. Shakespeare conveys a cryptic portrayal of romance where his characters are masochists and shows how love can blind and act so impulsively to satisfy an innate need. By ending of the play with three weddings Shakes pear sends the comments that love has no boundaries.
When the reader is first introduced to Duke Orinso, he is accounting the first time he laid eyes upon the lady Olivia. Through the use of language, the Duke speaks of a love that he wishes he could be full of and die away, “If music be the food of love, play on Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting The appetite may sicken, and so die” (Act I, I, 1-3). The Dukes case seems to be self indulgent, and gains enjoyment from being overdramatic. From the on set of the play, he gives off the impression that he knows he will never obtain the love of Olivia, but he enjoys wallowing in self pity, and encouraging others to be sympathetic to his situation as well. In a separate speech, the Duke refers to his desires for Olivia as “my desires, like fell and cruel hounds, E'er since pursue me (Act I, I, 20-24). It seems as though love or romance for him is a game, rather than an emotion to be taken seriously. Throughout the rest of the play, his pursuance of Olivia never ceases, and at one point the even threatens to kill his own servant Cesario because of Olivia’s mistaken thinking that Cesario was the man she had just married. With that threat from the Duke, this comedy could have potentially been turned to tragedy. The Duke never once elaborates on the finer feelings for Olivia, he merely pines over her in a superficial way, and had Olivia given in to his persistence, the Duke would have gained a trophy...