For my coursework, I will be talking about how some of the characters undergo a transformation, while others resist change. I will explore this idea in relation to the two characters I have chosen (Malvolio & Viola) and link their experiences to the key ideas in the play as a whole.
"Twelfth Night" is a comedy play, and has lots of love triangles in it, and some confusing relationships.
We expect many different characters to fall in and out of love, and to go through heartache. I have chosen Malvolio and Viola as my two characters, because I think that they both have quite strange relationships, and that they both go through a transformation, because Viola disguises herself as a male servant called Cesario. Another example of a character changing is when Malvolio finds a letter from his "secret admirer", and he dresses up in yellow stockings. But they differ in terms of control over the disguise, because Malvolio is tricked, whereas Viola knows what she is doing.
Malvolio and the Countess
Frederick Richard Pickersgill painting of Orsino a...
English: Olivia, character in Twelfth Night by Wil...The earlier scenes prepare the audience for what happens to the characters throughout the play (this is known as foreshadowing), because in the first scenes with Orsino, he is listening to love songs and crying because he has an unrequited love with Olivia, and he is upset that he cant have her. The characters speech is in verse and the others react by going to see Olivia to see what she thinks of Duke Orsino. This sets the mood where love will be the most important thing, but love seems too unreal for some of these characters.
In the earlier scenes where Viola first comes into the play, she immediately decides that she will become a male servant, so this gives the idea that she will be Cesario throughout the...