Essay on Irony in Twelfth Night -- Twelfth Night essays

Realizing that her mask has produced unexpected results, Viola makes an allusion to the Gordon knot in order to describe the perceived difficulty of extricating herself from the confusion. Viola, in the act of reinterpreting herself as a man for the main purpose of protection, has found herself the body from which some other characters can derive their own interpretations. As I am man, My severalize is desperate for my masters love As I am woman (now unfortunately the day) What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe? O time, thou moldiness untangle this, not I, It is too hard a knot for me tuntie. Viola. (2.2.35-40) scantily as easily as a soft chevril glove may be turned inside out, especially when it is pulled off to uncover the hand, Violas couch in the play, in relation to the other characters, can be seen as one that leads to a flexible play of ideas that reveal multiple meanings, opposed or otherwise. This essay will show how the ironic positions of t he main characters, in relation to Viola, in ordinal Night contribute and then weaken the comic rootage of the play, and finally, with certain dramatic license, reinstate it, thus complicating positions of valuation at certain points in the play. In Twelfth Night, one finds that the have romantic and comic aspects of the main plot stem mainly from the theme of mistaken gender identity. In dealing with this theme, it is necessary to note that Violas disguise as a man is assumed to be opaque by the aud... ...Grief, Karen. Plays and Playing in Twelfth Night. Bloom (47-60). Kreiger, Elliot. Malvolio and Class political theory. Bloom (19-26). Nevo, Ruth. Comic Transformations in Shakespeare. London Methuen & Co., 1980. Osborne, Laurie E. The Trick of Singularity Twelfth Night and the Performance Editions. Iowa City U of Iowa P, 1996. Rosenberg, Marvin. Subtext in Shakespeare. Thompson, Marvin, and Ruth Thompson, eds. Shakespeare and the intellect of Performance. Newark U of De laware P, 1989. (79-90). Shakespeare, William. The Arden Edition of the Works of William Shakespeare Twelfth Night. Ed. J. M. Lothian and T.W. Craik. UK Methuen & Co., 1975. Thatcher, David. Begging to Differ Modes of variability in Shakespeare. New York Peter Lang, 1999. Vickers, Brian. Appropriating Shakespeare Contemporary Critical Quarrels. New haven Yale U P, 1993