Twelfth Night: Characters (OCR A Level English Literature)
Revision Note
Characters
It is useful to consider each character as representing a function in the play. Understanding Shakespeare’s purpose for each character will help produce sophisticated analysis. Interpreting the play’s ideas by considering how each character may represent an idea or a sub-group in society, and how characters oppose each other or react to each other, is crucial.
Below you will find character profiles of:
Viola (Cesario)
The protagonist of the play, Viola, represents a young woman in strange territory
At the start of the play, Viola is shipwrecked and believes her twin brother, Sebastian, to have died at sea:
As an orphan (we are told her father died when she was 13 years old), Viola’s vulnerability and solitude is illustrated as she suffers a kind of ‘madness’
However, her disguise as a man, in order to work for the duke, allows her autonomy in the new land, Illyria
Viola’s cleverness, passion and quick wit, portrayed as the reason Olivia falls in love with her (although she is dressed as Cesario), suggests the fluidity of the play’s romances
Viola is the heroine as well as the hero of the play:
Her line, “I am all the daughters of my father’s house/And all the brothers too” conveys a gender-fluid characterisation
Viola is one of the only characters capable of maintaining control and self-discipline despite her intense emotions:
Her love for Orsino is proved as genuine and unwavering, while her bond with her brother is portrayed as constant
Examiner Tip
Your exam paper will contain an extract that will hold some significance to the play as a whole. Examiners will always award the highest marks to those students who refer to plot and character beyond just the extract. Think of the extract as a springboard to the rest of the play, and take a whole-text approach to writing your essay.
In practice, this means it is very successful to reference other parts of the play that relate to the extract, and even better if they contrast with the ideas or characterisation that Shakespeare is presenting in the chosen extract. So think: does Shakespeare present this character differently in other parts of the play? Do we see any character development? What ideas is he exploring when showing this contrast? You don’t always need to use quotations to show these changes, with the exam board suggesting that “looking at contrasts and parallels in characters and situations at different points in the text” is just as successful.
Countess Olivia
Olivia is a noblewoman, a countess, in Illyria
She is introduced as a woman in an extended period of mourning for her brother and father
Shakespeare presents Olivia in similar circumstances to Viola:
Viola says, “O I wish I could serve that lady”, highlighting their connection
Unusually, both female characters have autonomy as single women without male guardianship:
Part of Olivia’s grieving process is a denial of all male company for seven years
She has rejected the advances and communication of Duke Orsino and Sir Andrew Aguecheek
When Orsino sends his page-boy, Cesario (Viola), to woo Olivia on his behalf, she falls in love with Cesario who is not of a similar status
Shakespeare uses her character to illustrate the meaninglessness of her excessive show of grief:
She quickly falls in love with a man despite her apparent grief
In this way her character raises questions about love as a force for healing
Simultaneously, Olivia’s love for Cesario, who is really a woman, challenges ideas regarding homosexuality:
Sebastian tells her she is “betrothed both to a maid and man”
Her character is portrayed, like Orsino’s, as insincere and fickle:
Her confusion, when she sees Sebastian (Viola’s twin brother rescued at sea), is comedic, mocking her ignorance
Olivia chooses an unfamiliar male over the person she fell in love with (Viola):
She stays married to Sebastian (a stranger) even when she learns his true identity
Duke Orsino
Duke Orsino is a wealthy nobleman, a duke, in Illyria
His unequited love for the Countess Olivia causes him grief and love sickness:
He is introduced as melancholy, in need of music to “feed” his emotions
His language consists of grandiose metaphor and a semantic field of excess:
He wants to feed on the intense emotions of unrequited love
He appears to welcome the sickness it brings: "excess"; "surfeiting"; "appetite”; and “sickening"
Shakespeare illustrates how his melodramatic actions backfire when he sends his page-boy, Cesario, to woo Olivia on his behalf and she falls in love with Cesario instead
Throughout the play, Orsino’s moods are shown as unpredictable:
He tells his musicians to “play on”, but a few lines later, commands them: “Enough, no more”
To the audience, Orsino is seen as over-sensitive and obsessive, yet other characters view him as noble and good, “a gracious person”:
Perhaps Shakespeare is exploring the ease at which other characters are deceived by declarations of love
In a comedy, characters are not punished at the play’s conclusion for their flaws, but are laughed at for their foibles:
His hyperbolic language and changeable temperament is mocked by the fool
Orsino’s love for Olivia is shown as insincere at the end of the play
His proposal to Viola (previously Cesario) suggests the ease at which he has been deceived by appearance
At the end, Shakespeare uses Orisino’s character to highlight attitudes to marriage and gender restraints:
He asks Cesario to appear “in other habits” and to wear a “woman’s weeds” so he can make her his wife
Feste
Feste is Olivia’s fool, or court jester
In Elizabethan drama a fool represents the court jester, a man employed to entertain the court:
The role of Feste contributes to the topsy-turvy, celebratory nature of the play’s setting:
Traditionally, on Twelfth Night, roles are reversed and rules are ignored
The night represents a catharsis, a restart
In the play, Feste’s songs imitate the lively nature of the festival
His wise and soulful songs introduce a reflective tone:
His songs repeatedly refer to winter, ageing and death
Their omniscient position in court allowed them to voice their observations of courtly goings-on:
Although they are called fools, jesters were renowned for their sharp wit
Fools speak in sophisticated language, employing innuendo and metaphor to provide humour
Feste’s character creates drama and comedy:
Typical of the role of jester, Feste is allowed to make fun of his master and mistress:
When Olivia asks Malvolio to take the fool away, Feste replies, “Do you not hear, fellows? Take away the lady”
He engages in the plot to humiliate Malvolio, teasing him mercilessly
Elizabethan drama did not always characterise the fool with as dramatic a role as Feste in Twelfth Night:
His role within the main action of the play, as well as his role as omniscient observer, is a dramatic method which anticipates more modern plays
Feste’s role is similar to that of a chorus in Greek drama
He comments on actions and characters. For example, he characterises Orsino to the audience:
He says that his clothes are “changeable taffeta” and his mind is as changeable as an opal
The play’s denouement brings clarity and love to all the characters, except Feste:
His life is unchanged, suggesting a consistency of character
Examiner Tip
Consider the character as serving independent functions which drive the themes of the plot. In Twelfth Night, Shakespeare uses characters to highlight different elements of courtly society, particularly how the characters have huge influence on each other’s emotions throughout the play.
Malvolio
Malvolio’s character serves as a foil to the light-hearted characters in the play:
In particular, he contrasts the extreme revelry of Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek
His character represents an ambitious and self-important court steward:
Olivia tells him, “O, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, and taste with a distempered appetite”
His ambition to marry Olivia is presented as deluded and selfish:
He believes winning Olivia will bring him his own improved status in court
His foolish dance to Olivia presents his insincerity and desperate ambition
Shakespeare characterises Malvolio as Puritanical:
Maria, a fellow member of the household, calls him puritanical as he dresses in black and is intensely earnest
The reference to Puritanism would be humorous to an Elizabethan audience:
Elizabethan stereotypes of a Puritan were that they tended to be hypocritical and hated joy
Shakespeare mocks Malvolio’s vanity:
He is easily convinced by a fake letter that Olivia loves him
He still maintains he is being rational: “I do not now fool myself, to let imagination jade me, for every reason excites to this, that my lady loves me”
The hilarious scene of Malvolio dancing in yellow stockings and cross-garters (which the audience have been told Olivia really hates) humiliates him
He is locked away for his ‘madness’
Other characters
Sir Toby Belch
Sir Toby Belch is Olivia’s uncle, a penniless drunk whose power lies in his nobility
The drunken antics and banter between Sir Toby and Sir Andrew are, at first, funny and innocent:
They contribute to the celebratory mood of the festival
However, his character changes and audiences see him take pleasure in his cruelty:
He enjoys reminding Malvolio of his lowly status
He is cruel to Malvolio, locking him up and taunting him
He tells Sir Andrew he has to fight Cesario to the death in order to win Olivia’s love
At the end of the play, Sir Toby and Maria marry, based on a shared love of cunning pranks
Sir Andrew Aguecheek
Sir Andrew is a foil to Sir Toby, in appearance and character:
While Sir Toby is large and confident, Sir Andrew is thin and doubtful
Sir Toby is clever, while Sir Andrew is foolish and gullible
Sir Andrew Aguecheek is tricked by Sir Toby into believing (after a drunken night) that he could win Olivia’s hand in marriage:
Sir Toby describes him as "an ass-head, and a coxcomb, and a knave; a thin-faced knave, a gull"
His name suggests an illness which entails shivering and fever, an "ague”
Indeed, his cowardice is mocked when he is afraid to fight Cesario:
This is funnier for the audience who know Cesario is Viola, an untrained fighter
Maria
Maria is Olivia’s maid
She and Sir Toby find a connection in their love of clever tricks:
They both seek to wreak revenge on Malvolio for his dull and self-obsessed nature
Maria is portrayed, along with Feste and Sir Toby, as clever and quick-witted
Her ability to mimic Olivia’s writing and skills of manipulation create the comedy of Malvolio’s deception
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