Olivia, who mistakes Sebastian for Viola, asks Sebastian if he would marry her and he obliges. The thought of have oning a mask or camouflage allows the individual to be person different than what they truly are and it besides functions as a manner to protect the individual. However, during medieval times, fools were mentally handicapped, which nowadays is a cruel way of being entertained. Viola believes that her brother has died. Was not this love indeed? Olivia rushes off and marries Sebastian, thinking that he is Viola as Cesario; but everything works out in the end.
When the plot starts to develop, we see Orsino as a benevolent master. Not because she won't give Orsino, Aguecheek, or Malvolio the time of day, but because she's locked herself into a very silly lifestyle. However, Shakespeare made sure to compensate his briefness with uninhibited satire that makes Twelfth Night a classic in the romantic comedy genre. In such a world, homoerotic attraction cannot be fulfilled. But then, he relates the topic of hunting to his lovelorn condition; he alludes to Ovid's account of Actaeon, who was punished for seeing the goddess Diana naked by being turned into a hart, and then attacked by his own dogs.
We can understand her determination to dress as a adult male, since it sets the full secret plan in gesture. The irony in this line is that Olivia is quite right about her own love but misses all of the deeper meanings in her statement. An old man behaving like a teenage girl when he is rejected does not work in his case to win the love of Olivia. This helps Viola to know how the Duke behaves and to meet him better friendship. This is complicated by the fact that Cesario Viola has fallen in love with Orsino. Viola tries to imitate her brother in her disguise as Cesario, as the two are mistaken for each other in many scenes. For all of Olivia's unruliness and unconventional behavior, her marriage to Sebastian helps to reestablish the play's sense of social order.
An aristocratic woman, she is tossed up on the coast of Illyria by a shipwreck at the beginning of the play and disguises herself as the pageboy, Cesario, to make her way. She also has an effect on all of the other characters in the play. In my opinion, that was done by Shakespeare to introduce homosexual relationships on stage avoiding censorship through a very intelligent way. What makes him stand out from the rest of the characters is his unbridled quest for love that keeps on evading him until the very end of the play. When he is not whining about his love for Olivia, then he is obviously dishing out orders. However, Duke Orsino is not the weak ruler, as he behaves for the better part of the play. So, although the audience or the reader changes the couples all the way round, there are always homosexual relationships both physical between actors or during the performance in the text.
She shows her humor when she mocks the second-hand love she conveys to Olivia by utilizing rich and extraordinary linguistic communication. This, they argue, makes Viola just as silly as all the other characters that fall for inappropriate partners Olivia, Malvolio, and so on. Viola's wit, love for her brother, compassion, and the human and relatable way she acts while in love are some of her most important characteristics. He is very ridiculous in these scenes, as he wears yellow stockings and crossed garters and thinks that he will please Olivia, he starts molesting her and Olivia thinks that he had become mad and calls Maria to help him. Orsino quickly comes to depend on Cesario and asks his page to help him win Olivia's love.
Curio accompanies Orsino on his visit to Olivia's in the last act, though he says nothing; their basic purpose is to wait on Orsino as best they can, but they are not as close to him or as important in the action as Viola is. Viola proposes that she serve Orsino, since he is a good and just man; she conspires with the Captain that she may be presented to Orsino as a eunuch, and that her true identity as a foreign woman be concealed. While deception has worked positively for some characters, Malvolio realizes that he has been thoroughly and cruelly tricked. Not gesture of the liver, but of the roof of the mouth, That suffers surfeit, cloyment, and rebellion ; But mine is all every bit hungry as the sea And can digest every bit much. He claims that Maria, a servant, is the cleverest woman in Illyria, and this makes her a suitable wife for Sir Toby, a nobleman.
More reserved and balanced Sebastian and Viola soften these features and thus make two perfect couples in the terms of the setting. Viola is a princess, who is shipwrecked on the island of Illyria and fears that she has lost her brother to the sea. Viola expresses her wish to serve Olivia after hearing of Olivia's loss; and Viola's sympathy colors her later interactions with Olivia, with Viola being especially sensitive and caring toward Olivia. For instance, while addressing Curio he likens his desires to cruel hounds that that chase after him: O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first, Methought she purged the air of pestilence! Be this non love so? Olivia's marriage to Sebastian points to the conventions of Shakespearean comedy, a genre that always, always, always ends in marriage and heterosexual couplings as a way to reestablish order in the world. This demonstrates that Orsino is not only fickle in love but in opinion, and it shows that he does not like to be proven wrong.
Olivia A noblewoman, Countess of Illyria. This chiasmus underscores the theme of social inversion present throughout this play. Previously in this act, rhyme and verse were primarily spoken by the lovelorn Orsino; perhaps this sudden shift from prose to rhyming verse is meant to show that poetry is born of love, and that eloquence in verse is a symptom of being in love. Orsino laments that Olivia does not hold the same deeply felt love that he professes to have. Eunuchs were men who were castrated when they were young, usually to preserve their high singing voices; eunuchs were relatively common until the 18th century, at which time the procedure fell out of favor in Europe. Act 1 Scene 1 Secondly, he is very passionate about his love for Olivia.
Like Orsino who affects the tropes of love-sickness, Olivia plays the role of melancholy. Olivia is attracted by the Cesario when he comes to court Olivia for Orsino. Was non this love so? From the very beginning his personality contrasts with strict and solemn Olivia. In the hierarchical social system of Early Modern England, a servant marrying a nobleman would have been prohibited. We can only imagine the feelings of poor girl, who saw this side of her beloved for the first time.