Complicated and Confused Love—Plot Clue of Twelfth Night

It is universally acknowledged that William Shakespeare is one of the most famous and talented writers in England. The majority of his masterpieces is household names. As one of the well-known romantic comedies, The Twelfth Night has made a strong impression on the readers. It mainly talks a story about two men and women falling in love with each other. Duke of Illyria Orsino signs for the love of a rich countess Olivia. A shipwrecked girl Viola tends to disguise herself as a man and seek service with Duke Orsino. Then Viola falls in love with Orsino. Orsino asks Viola to go to Olivia as a messenger. At this time, Olivia immediately falls in love with Viola. Actually, Viola has a twin brother called Sebastian. He and his rescuer Antonio come to Illyria. Olivia has mistaken Sebastian for Viola. . . As far as I am concerned, the madness in the Twelfth Night is main characters’ complicated and confused love and affection, which lays the foundation for the plot development.

Any odd things don’t need an explanation, in a similar way, all the unusual endings could come into existence. At the beginning of this drama, “dead love” brims with the whole atmosphere of the play. The rich countess Olivia tries her mind not to see anyone, and will not last seven years. Within the seven years, she has to cry once a day in an attempt to “keep fresh” her sadness over losing his old brother and his love for her. Love is described as dead, here. However, Olivia immediately has a crush on Viola at the first sight. Another similar situation is Duke Orsino refers to Viola as a male servant couple of minutes ago, then accepts her who dresses male clothing all of a sudden. Finally, he decides to marry Viola. Concerning the theme of love, the development of plots in Twelfth Night is unexpected and reasonable things.

As the old saying goes, women are attracted to bad guys. We are always finding a special attraction in bad guys shaped by Shakespeare. Nevertheless, it is true to say that certain types of character very clearly aroused his dislike; and it is also true to say that these are the types of character that appear to have some fascination with our world. In a word, his villains are rapidly becoming our heroes. Twelfth Night centers on the torment of the bad guy Malvolio, which provokes so complex an ambivalence in us that I can conjure up no figure remotely like him in the entire tradition of western literature. Shakespeare is perhaps never more unfathomable than in his creation of Malvolio, one of the most memorable and individual of all Shakespearean protagonists. For most of us, Malvolio usurps the play though at a destructive expense to his social self. It is difficult to keep in mind that Malvolio is only a minor character, who speaks perhaps a tenth of the play’s lines. Erotic and social fantasies afflict all of us, at every age. If we shudder at Malvolio’s social self-immolation, it must be because he is the scapegoat for the enigma of our own guilty fictions.

Love can be used to be a rational appreciation, there is a sentimental love can be used to occupy. Relationships with women are often described as a rational love, and relationships with men are described as a sentimental love. Generally speaking, rational love and sentimental love usually exist in the same play, especially in Shakespeare’s. One need only thinks about Shakespeare’s two plays with lovers in their titles—Romeo and Juliet, Troilus and Cressida—to notice how this association of masculinity with violence can damage men’s relationships with women. As a matter of fact, male relationships with men are as fragile and fraught with fantasies as are male relationships with women. The Twelfth Night, as in many of Shakespeare’s plays, Antonio shows his love for Sebastian by twice putting his own life at risk. When Antonio thinks Sebastian has betrayed him, he stops calling him sir or young gentleman. The loyalty among men appears combined with men aggression.

Neither male nor female, neither man nor boy, and in the end neither servant nor master, he is kind of a riddle and a pun in human form, testifying to the power of comedy as a means of disrupting settled notions and complicating illusory certainties. For the core character of Twelfth Night, it is no doubt that Viola is supposed to be spoken highly. There is no selfishness in her love because there is no selfishness in her nature. The true love is that one desires not its own happiness first, but the happiness of its lover.

Works Cited

A.C.Bradley. Feste the Jester; A Book of Homage to Shakespeare. London: Oxford University

Press.1916.Print.

G.Wilson Knight. The Romantic Comedies; The Shakespearean Tempest. Oxford: Oxford

University Press.1932.Print.