Twelfth Night Essay

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Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night has a simple but direct moral that directly ties into Western European thought and culture during the time period it was written in. Shakespeare focuses on the point that something are not what they seem. Shakespeare was able to portray this moral by focusing in on the thought of love or infatuation with a character in the play. The identities of the characters get mixed up at times leading to confusion and misunderstand as the play progresses. Shakespeare was excellent at showing that gender wasn’t even certain. Twelfth Nights moral was something are not what they seem in terms of love or infatuation, mistaken identities, and the identities of gender. When Shakespeare wrote Twelfth Night it is exceedingly obvious…show more content…
If Olivia actually knew that Cesario and Viola were the same persons she would not be infatuated with him/her, rather she would move on and fall in love with someone that would be able to love her back. Viola who was playing Cesario, a man, fell in love Duke Orsino puzzled all of the characters in the play when she stated “After him I love more than I love these eyes, more than my life, more by all mores than e’er I shall love wife. If I do feign you witness above, punish my life for tainting of my love” (Act 5 Scene 1 line 138). The love that she felt for Orsino was certainly not what it seemed, because she was a man confessing her love for another man, and it that time period a man falling in love with another man was unquestionably not to be expected. Shakespeare made the character feel like they were in love when, in fact, they were in love with the idea of being in love. Using Henry VIII the moral of Twelfth Night in terms of love can connect to Western European thought and culture during this time period. Henry VIII also had misconceptions about what it truly means to be in love with a person. Henry VIII was married numerous times thinking he was in love with

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