Major Themes of "Twelfth Night"

Love as a Cause of Suffering

Twelfth Night is a romantic comedy, and romantic love is the main

focus of this play. Despite the fact that the play offers a happy ending, in which the
various lovers find one another and achieve wedded bliss, Shakespeare shows that
love can cause pain. Many of the characters seem to view love as a kind of curse, a
feeling that attacks its victims suddenly and disruptively. Various characters claim to
suffer painfully from being in love or rather from the pangs of unrequited love. At one
point, Orsino depicts love dolefully as an “appetite” that he wants to satisfy
and cannot (Act I, scene i); at another point, he calls his desires “fell and cruel
hounds” (Act I, scene i). Olivia more bluntly describes love as a “plague” from
which she suffers terribly. These metaphors contain an element of violence, further
painting the love-struck as victims of some random force in the universe. Even the
less melodramatic Viola sighs unhappily that “My state is desperate for my
master’s love” (Act II, scene ii). This desperation has the potential to result in
violence — as in Act V, scene i, when Orsino threatens to kill Cesario because he
thinks that --- Cesario has forsaken him to become Olivia’s lover.

Love is also exclusionary: Some people achieve romantic happiness, while others
do not. At the end of the play, as the happy lovers rejoice, both Malvolio and
Antonio are prevented from having the objects of their desire. Malvolio, who has
pursued Olivia, must ultimately face the realization that he is a fool, socially unworthy
of his noble mistress. Antonio is in a more difficult situation, as social norms do not
allow for the gratification of his apparently sexual attraction to Sebastian. Love, thus,
cannot conquer all obstacles, and those whose desires go unfulfilled remain no less
in love but feel the sting of its absence all the more severely.

Love and Desire

Love and desire function as powerful drivers of plot because they seem
to strike suddenly and unpredictably, and because they render characters helpless to
change their feelings. Olivia is startled and somewhat dismayed to recognize the
desire she feels in response to Cesario. Viola echoes this sentiment when, finding
herself trapped in a love triangle with Olivia and Orsino. She says that

“It is too hard a knot for me to untie.” (Act II, scene ii)

When Malvolio starts to believe that Olivia is in love with him, he reasons that

“Tis but fortune, all is fortune.” (Act II, scene v)

Even though it seems surprising that a high-ranking woman like Olivia would be
romantically interested in her own employee, Malvolio believes that Olivia's love for
him is a step toward his true destiny. Likewise, Sebastian doesn't seek a logical
explanation for Olivia’s strange behavior, trusting that their relationship is an

“accident and flood of fortune.” (Act IV, scene iii)

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 Major Themes of "Twelfth Night"
For most of the characters, with the notable exception of Malvolio, this strategy
works well, since by the end of the play, everyone has found a partner they are
happy with.

Disguise and Deception

When she first finds herself stranded in Ilyria, Viola decides to

“conceal me what I am”, entrusting only the Captain with her secret. As a young
woman who could be vulnerable to attack or sexual assault. She is also much safer if
she is disguised as a man. However, Viola quickly learns the cost of maintaining a
disguise. Her intentions and actions are constantly misinterpreted. And she cannot
correct these mistakes without betraying her secret. While disguise and deception
cause serious difficulties for Viola, and even threaten her life when Orsino falsely
believes that Cesario has stolen Olivia away from him, the play also suggests that
disguise can serve a positive purpose as well. In a time when women were expected
to follow strict rules of social decorum. Viola’s masculine disguise gives her the
chance to speak her mind much more freely. This shift is most apparent in the scene
where Orsino and the disguised Viola argue about how men and women behave in
love. Viola stands up for women, arguing that

“In faith, they are as true of heart as we.” (Act II, scene iv).

The Uncertainty of Gender

Gender is one of the most obvious and much-discussed topics in the

play. Twelfth Night is one of Shakespeare's so-called transvestite comedies, in which
a female character—in this case, Viola—disguises herself as a man. This situation
creates a sexual mess: Viola falls in love with Orsino but cannot tell him,
because he thinks she is a man, while Olivia, the object of Orsino's affection,
falls for Viola in her guise as Cesario. There is a clear homoerotic subtext here:
Olivia is in love with a woman, even if she thinks he is a man, and Orsino often
remarks on Cesario's beauty, suggesting that he is attracted to Viola even before her
male disguise is removed. This latent homoeroticism finds an explicit echo in the
minor character of Antonio, who is clearly in love with his male friend, Sebastian. But
Antonio's desires cannot be satisfied, while Orsino and Olivia both find tidy
heterosexual gratification once the sexual ambiguities and deceptions are
straightened out.

Orsino’s relationship with Cesario might simply be a close and affectionate

friendship, but it also seems to hint at romantic elements, such as when he refers to
Cesario as one

“…whom, by heaven I swear, I tender dearly.” (Act V, scene i)

However, while the play introduces elements of fluidity and ambiguity, it closes with a
firmly heteronormative conclusion.

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