Essay
A* Twelfth Night Exemplar Essay 3 (Section B)
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'In Twelfth Night, the discomfort of the characters always excites laughter rather than concern.' To what extent do you agree with this view?
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Twelfth Night practice essay 3'In Twelfth Night, the discomfort of the characters always excites laughter rather than concern.' To
what extent do you agree with this view?
Arguably, declaring that the discomfort of the characters in Twelfth Night always excites
laughter rather than concern ignores the mistreatment of the play’s natural fools, as Sir Andrew,
Malvolio and Antonio all suffer considerable discomfort that perhaps goes too far to be dismissed as
merely comic. Nevertheless, at least with Malvolio, dislikeable personalities could limit our concern
for immoral treatment, while the discomfort of the three central characters – namely, Viola, Orsino
and Olivia – establishes the disunity that is needed for a comedic play to function so effectively.
Indeed, it is Viola’s struggle borne out of her disguise as Cesario that forms the crux of Twelfth
Night’s comedy. Shakespeare makes effective use of dramatic irony to create an exclusive bond
between the audience and Viola – a bond which enables us to revel in the discomfort of the
protagonist as only we know the reasons for her struggle. Although Viola confides in the audience
very rarely compared to other Shakespearean heroines (like Rosalind and Portia in the playwright’s
other transvestite comedies), she does make several important asides such as ‘who’er I woo, myself
would be his wife’; the flippancy of the word ‘who’er’ clearly indicates how trapped Viola has
become as a result of her disguise as a man, which prevents her union to Orsino until the comic
resolution. Shakespeare’s address of the disguise itself in the line ‘disguise, I see thou art a
wickedness’ presents Viola’s alternative identity as the antagonist, yet the reason why this does not
provoke concern is because there is an unspoken agreement between the audience and the
playwright that this discomfort will only be temporary. According to the Essential Movement, there
must be a return to unity by the end of the play, and given Viola and Orsino’s well-matched social
backgrounds, it is obvious that they will inevitably unite during the comic resolution. As a result,
Viola’s discomfort arising from her disguise encourages laughter rather than concern. This view is
strengthened by the duel scene Viola and Sir Andrew; Viola is clearly an unwilling participant, yet she
can do nothing about it due to her disguise. Shakespeare does not spare us her discomfort through
the use of bawdy humour in her utterance ‘a little thing would make me tell them how much I lack of
man’ – the sexual innuendo of the ‘little thing’ is extremely comic, reducing the potential danger of
the duel which would see deaths in Shakespeare’s tragedies, such as Romeo and Juliet. Instead, this
duel is a farcical affair in which we can really enjoy Viola’s reluctance to fight, knowing the reasons
why she cannot do so while the other characters do not thanks to our exclusive bond and the
dramatic irony.
There is never a fear for Viola’s life in the duel because her opponent, Sir Andrew, is an equally
unwilling participant. This is ironic given his confident claims such as ‘I could so beat the rogue!’ –
the exclamative falsely sets him up as a strong and bloodthirsty knight, yet this could hardly be
further from the truth as his folly is based on his cowardice in failing to face up to the effeminate
Cesario. The staging of many productions, including that of the Globe Theatre production, physically
presents Sir Andrew as a figure of ridicule, running back and forward to symbolise his reluctance to
fight. However, there could be a deeper reason behind his refusal to fight that may be cause for
concern rather than laughter. Throughout the play, Sir Andrew is exploited and dominated by Sir
Toby, who throws him into this dangerous situation for nothing more than his own sadistic pleasure.
Sir Toby’s utterance ‘I’ll ride my horse as well as I ride you’ is indicative of his physical domination
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