Gender In Twelfth Night
As it was stated earlier in this essay, Act 3 Scene 4 exposes in Twelfth Night, as in numerous other plays by Shakespeare, a number of comparisons between an upper cast of characters, such as the masters and nobles, with a lower cast of characters, such as the servants. The way these set of characters are parallel in the plot implements a comic contradiction which may be further reinforced through the costumes these characters wear.
Twelfth Night was a popular Holiday that happened every January 6th as a festival of Epiphany and the celebration of the last remaining day of twelve days of Christmas. During Shakespeare’s life, Twelfth Night represented the end of a time of seasonal festivities in which dances, party gatherings and banquets …show more content…
This theme is played out by characters such as Malvolio who is always patronizing the lowly servants as he dreams of marrying Olivia and raising to nobility by becoming a count. This theme of changing classes is also played out by Viola, whose disguise proposes that class, just like gender, is a relatively changeable part of a human being that can be experimented with by acting a certain way and by changing the type of clothes a character wears.
Shakespeare here is portraying what Alsop, Fitzsimmons and Lennon, centuries later, have written about gender in the gender theory, that it is a social construction. (2002). If it is that easy for Viola to change into Cesario, just by changing her clothes and her manners, then gender or even social class are not concrete ideologies that individuals are inherently born with.
After a few incidents of mistaken identity towards the end of Act 3 Scene 4 to Act 4 Scene 1, the proceeding scene opens again at Olivia’s house. Maria and Toby have just imprisoned Malvolio inside a dark chamber where he is supposed to heal from his madness. At the exterior of the chamber Maria tells Feste, her clown, to dress up with a gown and a beard she has bought, to act as the great scholar, ‘Sit Topas’ …show more content…
The costumes changes make these characters act as if they are in a role-playing game and creates a performance-within the-performance which creates the illusion that the audience of Twelfth Night are simultaneously watching two plays. Shakespeare in this scene reminds the audience, through these role-playing games that Maria fools Malvolio with, that, like the characters, each individual member of the audience may sometimes also play different roles in their own lives and are likely to also play around with the lives of others by pretending to be other
Twelfth Night was a popular Holiday that happened every January 6th as a festival of Epiphany and the celebration of the last remaining day of twelve days of Christmas. During Shakespeare’s life, Twelfth Night represented the end of a time of seasonal festivities in which dances, party gatherings and banquets …show more content…
This theme is played out by characters such as Malvolio who is always patronizing the lowly servants as he dreams of marrying Olivia and raising to nobility by becoming a count. This theme of changing classes is also played out by Viola, whose disguise proposes that class, just like gender, is a relatively changeable part of a human being that can be experimented with by acting a certain way and by changing the type of clothes a character wears.
Shakespeare here is portraying what Alsop, Fitzsimmons and Lennon, centuries later, have written about gender in the gender theory, that it is a social construction. (2002). If it is that easy for Viola to change into Cesario, just by changing her clothes and her manners, then gender or even social class are not concrete ideologies that individuals are inherently born with.
After a few incidents of mistaken identity towards the end of Act 3 Scene 4 to Act 4 Scene 1, the proceeding scene opens again at Olivia’s house. Maria and Toby have just imprisoned Malvolio inside a dark chamber where he is supposed to heal from his madness. At the exterior of the chamber Maria tells Feste, her clown, to dress up with a gown and a beard she has bought, to act as the great scholar, ‘Sit Topas’ …show more content…
The costumes changes make these characters act as if they are in a role-playing game and creates a performance-within the-performance which creates the illusion that the audience of Twelfth Night are simultaneously watching two plays. Shakespeare in this scene reminds the audience, through these role-playing games that Maria fools Malvolio with, that, like the characters, each individual member of the audience may sometimes also play different roles in their own lives and are likely to also play around with the lives of others by pretending to be other