Mini Analysis of Twelfth Night - Jerry Shakespeare ( I mean Springer)

Jerry Shakespeare ( I mean Springer)

        In William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, things are made topsy-turvy in the realms of gender and social order. Major and minor characters play drastic roles, courtly love is shown in uncommon comical ways of love triangles of various characters, cross-dressing, and even undertones of homosexuality are also in display, like side story of Antonio and Sebastian, Olivia falling for Cesario’s female traits, are small examples just to name a few of the love circus of Shakespeare’s big top tent.

At the end of the play, in my opinion restored order comes, as I wrote in the weeks class blogger and further elaborate:

          Social Order is consequently restored in the end which leaves question to what seems like exceptions to the norm simply because to me its shows they are playing with what is normal, cross dressing and glutinous partying, which symbolizes to me the play of crossing class boundaries and how it represents the playing of what social order is. This is show in events like where Malvolio is more into the love of gaining social power rather than the love of actually gaining Olivia’s “hart”-, and how in the end, how Viola and her brother true identities are revealed and ironically married to people whom are pretty much the same class as they are anyways, not much gain. Sir Toby ends up marrying Maria, which makes me think Maria has gained in social class, but seems likes she is still restricted to being under power and dependency of Sir Toby, was it worth it in the end? Its like in today’s world where a woman might marry a man because of the wrong ideaologies, like money or social gain, and in the end, ends up hating their life, like Michelle Pheifer who plays Elvira in Scarface, whom marries to an easier life through higher ranked men, but hates her life. She is presented as the girlfriend of Frank, in which the director shows the audience that she is not into men, but into their societal roles, she later moves on to become Tony Montana’s wife, in which it seems at first she didn’t fall for his charm, but later as Tony gained wealth and power, she later followed.

      The question is asked, “Does the play serve to critique or uphold the gender and societal norms of Shakespeare’s England?” and I believe the answer is found in Twelfth Night (how the characters defy normal gender roles by being people they are not -Viola and her male identity Cesario, or making people misdirect how others may feel about them -like Malvolio being tricked in a forgery style letter written by Maria) and also the introduction material of William Shakespeare. In the introduction material it states, “The authors …thought they could enhance the broad impact they sought to achieve by stripping their characters of all incidental distinguishing traits and getting to their essences.  They believed that their audiences would thereby not be distracted by the irrelevant details of individual identities. Shakespeare grasped that the spectacle of human destiny was in fact vastly more people, people whom he realized with an unprecedented intensity of individualism…no other writer oh his time was able to create and enter into the interior worlds of so many characters…” (1169). Shakespeare focuses not only on a solid main character, but was able to pull off a series of major and minor characters of both which played significant roles for the audience to ponder. Not only did we get main characters in Twelfth Night, but we also can see how Maria, yet small in character played a significant role in gender ideology, or even how Feste, whom seemed to be a supporting character gives the audiences a stronger insight of what is going on or a deeper look of another character. For instance, he is known as a clown, but will spew out insights like, “Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun; it shines everywhere. I would be sorry, sir, but the fool should be as oft with your master as with my mistress. I think I saw your wisdom there.” (3.1.37-40)He is like an oxymoron, a fool in his profession, but a genius minded aside of it. I think he also said things I thought he was suggesting he was onto the fakeness in people like when he said, “…send thee a beard!” (3.1.43-44) to Viola as she was cross-dressed as Cesario, and Shakespeare’s dialogue leaves her to respond by saying, “I am almost sick for one, though I would not have it grow on my chin”  (3.1.45-46) Although what is being said is said to carry conversation, I saw a symbolic meaning that he was also suggesting Cesario to show off a true man in oneself and present a beard on Cesario too. Hence, I see Shakespeare also pointing out that romantism in England began to contrast falling in love with one’s heart (norm) to consequently marrying someone because of their role in society, like Sir Andrew whom spends 3000 duckets on booze and entertainment for he and his friends, and he thinks because of who he is and his class, he thinks he has a chance to regain his wealth by simplying marrying Olivia for her status and not her heart.