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Summary Twelfth Night character profiles
Character profiles for all Twelfth Night characters
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TWELFTH NIGHT CHARACTERPROFILES
DUKE ORSINO- The Duke of Illyria
The starved, Petrarchan lover
Throughout the play, Orsino is lovesick for Lady Olivia but becomes attracted to his new page
boy- Cesario. Though Cesario is truly Viola in disguise and Orsino eventually marries a
woman, Orsino technically has a homoerotic attraction to Viola. This attraction to the
ostentatiously male Cesario injects sexual ambiguity into his character.
He is a vehicle through which Shakespeare explores the absurdity of love- presented as an
extreme egoist, he constantly complains of his heartsickness over Olivia, but it is made clear
to the audience that this is a mask for his obsession for love and making a spectacle of
himself, rather than having a passionate love for Olivia, which he claims to have at many
points in the play. His entire opening speech is filled with words such as "excess,"
"surfeiting," "appetite . . . sickening," and "dying fall," words which show the duke to be
sentimentally in love with love.
The duke, however, is as changeable as the "sea" and as inconsistent as "an opal in the
sunlight." His languid craving for music is equated by his languid reclining upon an opulent
couch and his requesting attention, and then suddenly becoming bored by what he has just
requested. It is, however, the duke's changeable nature which allows us to believe that he
can immediately switch his love for Olivia to Viola at the end of the play.
The duke is, however, according to Olivia and others, a perfect gentleman. He is handsome,
courtly, virtuous, noble, wealthy, gracious, loyal and devoted — in short, he is everything a
young lady could wish for in a husband. This is ultimately what makes it believable that Viola
does fall in love with him immediately.
Orsino’s quick friendship with Cesario and his unrequited love for Lady Olivia highlight his
irrational nature when it comes to love and relationships. This reflects Twelfth Night’s
underlying theme of the revelry and madness of love.
Key adjectives: obsessive, deluded, self-obsessed, persistent, egotistical, noble, powerful,
vain, conceited, heartfelt, traditional, virtuous, wealthy, devoted, superficial, foolish, erratic,
impulsive, self-serving, passive
, VIOLA (CESARIO)
The play’s protagonist, a young beautiful woman of aristocratic birth.
After washing up on the shore of Illyria after being separated from hew twin brother, Sebastian,
in a shipwreck, with the help of a Sea Captain Viola disguises herself as male ‘Cesario’ in attempt
to serve Duke Orsino in his court. Instantly, she falls in love with the handsome Duke, however
she cannot love him due to the restrictions of her masculine disguise and mission to woo Lady
Olivia for Orsino.
Viola feels entrapped within her disguise as it begins to form a love triangle; her poignant plight
is the central conflict in the play.
She shows self-control and dignity in contrast to the bombastic, overly sentimental
performances of Orsino and Lady Olivia.
Viola’s disguise brings confusion and duplicity into other characters’ lives as well as her own. As
Cesario, Viola also provides insight into characters such as Lady Olivia and Duke Orsino. Viola
also finds herself the subject of dislike and trickery while disguised. Sir Toby, for example, tricks
Sir Andrew into challenging Cesario to a duel in order to gain Olivia’s affection.
The revelry of love is a primary theme in Twelfth Night. Viola is in the midst of much amorous
wildness, with Duke Orsino’s excessive pining and Lady Olivia’s quick infatuation with Cesario.
Even Viola finds that she is falling in love with Duke Orsino, despite her precarious situation.
For most critics, Viola is one of Shakespeare's most delightful and beloved feminine creations
from his comedies. Surrounded by characters who express the extremes of emotionalism and
melancholy, she represents the norm of behaviour in this strange world of Illyria. Viola is
immediately seen to be quick-witted enough to evaluate her situation, of sound enough
judgment to recognize the captain's integrity, resourceful enough to conceive of the disguise,
and practical enough to carry out this design.
Viola also has a native intelligence, an engaging wit, and an immense amount of charm. These
qualities will help her obtain her position with Duke Orsino, and they are also the same qualities
which cause Lady Olivia to immediately fall in love with her. It was her charming personality, we
should remember, which won her the sea captain's loyalty, without whose help her disguise
would have never succeeded. And within a short three days' time, her wit, charm, loyalty, and
her skill in music and conversation won for her the complete trust of Duke Orsino.
For the modern audience, Viola's charm lies in her simple, straightforward, good-humoured
personality. She could have used her disguise for all sorts of conniving, yet she is forthright and
honest in all of her dealings with Lady Olivia and with Duke Orsino, albeit she does use her
disguise to entertain the audience with delightful verbal puns. Perhaps the most surprising thing
about Viola is that a young lady in possession of so many attributes falls in love with someone
who is as moody and changeable as the duke.
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