“Disguise is central to the dramatic impact of ‘Twelfth Night or What You Will’; no other feature of drama is important.” Discuss the validity of this statement.

1. Name: O. Tennant 13B
Subject: Literatures in English Unit 1
Teacher: Mrs. Moore
“Disguise is central to the dramatic impact of ‘Twelfth Night or What You Will’; no other
feature of drama is important.” Discuss the validity of this statement.
Shakespeare utilizes disguise as the primary source of dramatic impact in his play
Twelfth Night or What You Will. It is particularly common in Comedy, for various reasons.
With disguise, there is confusion creating comical situations throughout the play, mistaken
identities adding a lot of dramatic irony to entertain the audience. In fact, disguise is a crucial
plot to the play. It is the thread which runs through the play from start to end and holds it all
together. On the Elizabethan stage, playwrights frequently included disguise, or deception, in
their comedies, using it as a comedic device. In Twelfth Night or What You Will, it is the
characters abilities to utilize disguises to deceive one another or themselves. This is evident
by the numerous complications caused by merely by Viola's physical disguise, as well as
Orsino and Malvolio's self-deception.
Shakespeare uses people in disguise to complicate his plots. The first evident of
disguise is Olivia deceiving herself by covering her face with a veil and to think she can
mourn for her brother and abjure the company of men. However, it is Viola decision to adopt
the disguise of a man, Cesario and to be presented as a eunuch to the Duke Orsino presents
the central dramatic device of the plot. Women's parts were played by young male actors in
Shakespeare's day, so the audience would have found special sophistication in Viola's part.
Excluding the characters, Shakespeare makes only the audience aware of such
disguise. The play was written during the Elizabethan period, where women had more
subservient roles. Viola’s primary intention of hiding her femininity is to obtain employment,
her guise creates however creates an endless sexual and gender confusion between the Viola
– Olivia – Orsino love triangle. Mainly being that she has fallen in love with the Duke
Orsino, the irony is revealed as she is being sent by the man she loves to woo another woman,
and the woman she is to woo for him has fallen in love with her disguise. Blindly, she comes
into the middle of the impasse between Orsino and Olivia. By doing this, Shakespeare creates
multiple confusion, because in Elizabethan theatre, a man would play the role of a woman
and the Viola a woman disguised herself as a man. This makes the audience wonder, how
Shakespeare will resolve this issue, as he excludes the characters, making only the audience
aware of such disguise. Having not much of a choice, Viola performs Orsino’s tasks, sighing
“yet a barful strife, whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife”. This has led to Olivia's

2. Name: O. Tennant 13B
Subject: Literatures in English Unit 1
Teacher: Mrs. Moore
otherwise improbably ardour for her when she says to herself “methinks, I feel this youth's
perfections, with an invisible and subtle stealth” revealing her mere self-deception.
Olivia disguises her love for Cesario by asking Malvolio to return to Cesario a ring
which she in fact is giving to her as a token of her love hoping Cesario will understand and
come back to woo her in secret, even though his job is to woo her on behalf of the Duke.
Though she is unafraid to be honest about her feelings for the Duke, she is apparently
uncomfortable with proclaiming her new feelings for Cesario. It is here Shakespeare allows
Viola to become aware of the consequences of disguise as she says in a soliloquy “disguise, I
see thou art a wickedness” but “O time, thou must untangle this, not I, It is too hard a knot for
me t’ untie!” Her disguise as Cesario, Viola is able to make a poignant speech about love and
the nature of women to Orsino and the audience.
VIOLA
”Sooth, but you must.
Say that some lady, as perhaps there is,
Hath for your love a great a pang of heart
As you have for Olivia. You cannot love her.
You tell her so. Must she not then be answered? “
She expresses to Orsino her love, while suffering silently herself. Her speech is all the more
effective because Orsino doesn't know the truth about her disguise, but the audience does.
Viola's disguise has made her look exactly like her brother. Interestingly, the one who
reveals this fact thus unravelling both Viola's disguise and her separation from her brother, as
well as Olivia's love for her and her love for Orsino is Antonio. Shakespeare uses Antonio a
constant, honest character in the play. While most of the characters treat their friends and
lovers as means to an end or as part of a joke, Antonio loves Sebastian, and feels deeply
betrayed when he thinks Sebastian has used him, unknowingly that is was Viola. His feelings
are perhaps the deepest and most true of all the characters, as he never hides them.
Incidental disguises, such as Feste's as Sir Topas, help to unify the various plots.
Shakespeare uses Feste as the clown in the play to disguises himself as an idiot to aid with
dramatic irony and entertainment, but is not actually a fool. Feste’s disguise as Sir Topas

3. Name: O. Tennant 13B
Subject: Literatures in English Unit 1
Teacher: Mrs. Moore
cements the deception of Malvolio’s disguised against his own will to appear to be a mad and
insane man. Sesbastian was even disguised against his own will when Sir Andrew and Sir
Toby attacked him as they thought he was Cesario.
To remove disguise and resolve the conflict Shakespeare used his most honest
character Antonio to end all jokes and disguises. Thematically, the use of disguise reminds us
that people are not always what they appear to be. Shakespeare successfully used disguised to
compel the audience’s attention to create a dramatic irony for entertainment and to sew
together a notorious display of comical situations.