Essay
A* Twelfth Night Exemplar Essay 4 (Section B)
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'Because Malvolio is the comic villain of the play, it is impossible for audiences to sympathise with him'. To what extent do you agree with this view?
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Twelfth Night practice essay 4'Because Malvolio is the comic villain of the play, it is impossible for audiences to sympathise with
him'. To what extent do you agree with this view?
Arguably, Malvolio’s aspersions to social-climbing and his puritanical disdain for the twelfth
night festivities establish him as a comic villain with whom it is impossible to sympathise. To a great
extent, the audience’s reaction to his treatment depends on their social period, with a modern
spectator being more likely to sympathise with Malvolio owing to his harsh imprisonment and
excessive humiliation for the sake of a joke which perhaps goes too far.
The very nature of the comic villain automatically limits sympathy for Malvolio; historically,
the comic villain acts as the ‘anti-comedy’ who must be overcome to achieve resolution.
Undoubtedly, Malvolio fulfils the role of the ‘anti-comedy’ since he is a kill-joy to the mood of excess
and celebration allowed for by the twelfth night season. Shakespeare clearly emphasises Malvolio’s
inability to partake in the festivities through the tone of incredulity contained in the interrogative
‘my masters, are you mad or what are you?’ – the reference to madness may appear ironic to an
informed audience given that Malvolio is later diagnosed as insane later in the play. Audiences of the
Elizabethan era would possibly resent the nerve of Malvolio to challenge his social superiors, taking a
role far above his station in a manner forbidden according to the feudal class system of the time. The
view that Malvolio is a social-climber undeserving of any sympathy gains credibility when we
consider his declarative utterance ‘nothing that can be can come between me and the full prospect
of my hopes’; the clarity of purpose and conviction contained in the phrase ‘nothing that can be’
suggests that he genuinely envisages himself as ‘Count Malvolio’, which would appear almost
laughable to a contemporary audience owing to his lowly status as Olivia’s steward. His puritanical
beliefs mark him out as a target for the comedy as Sir Toby questions sarcastically ‘does thou think
that because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale?’. ‘Cakes and ale’ symbolise all
that Malvolio shuns as a puritan in a reveller’s domain – the Puritans pushed for the closure of
theatres throughout Shakespeare’s time as a playwright, thus explaining why Malvolio is portrayed
so unsympathetically. As a result, certainly for an Elizabethan audience there is no doubting the fact
that Malvolio is undeserving of sympathy owing to what appears as madness.
However, for a modern audience, whose approach to madness is more ethically holistic,
Malvolio’s punishment may go too far. He is a victim firstly of Olivia’s passivity; she does nothing to
exonerate her steward and remarks too late at the end of the play that ‘he hath been most
notoriously abused’. This is a fitting analysis of Malvolio’s treatment, since Sir Toby manages to ‘have
him in a locked room and bound’. The verb ‘bound’ emphasises how Malvolio is treated as
something barely human, forced to suffer in a makeshift prison for what a modern audience would
see as only minor transgressions (if any). Indeed, Malvolio could hardly have known that the letter
was false because of Maria’s prowess as a scheming conniver. To a considerable degree, she is the
most ‘criminal’ of all the characters given that she forges her mistress’ handwriting and yet is not
punished in any way. Her malicious and aggressive rhetoric means that Malvolio is deserving of at
least some empathy – she declares ‘on that vice in him my revenge will find notable cause to work’.
Many spectators will struggle to understand Maria’s motivations for punishing Malvolio so harshly
when he does not commit any wrong against her personally. When faced with such a powerful
female like Maria – reminiscent of the typical Shakespearean matriarch (such as Lady Macbeth) –
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