Saturday, October 24, 2009
Romance or Comedy
Shakespeare's 12th Night, as director Charlie Fee declared, presents us with two female heroines unique in their society in that both are cut loose from parental and societal demands and placed in the revolutionary position of choosing their own love interest. Though we see little of their respective courtships, we see enough to make some judgments on these two women and the bases of their choices. Evaluate the love relationships of Orsino and Viola and Olivia and Sebastian/Cesario. For the sake of his comedy, what aspects of each relationship does Shakespeare target satirically? Is the Bard making any universal pronouncements about love and its role in society?
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I think that Shakespeare satirizes the wildness and sometimes lack of logic that love entails. Orsino believes that he is in love with Olivia and uses Cesario, who is in love with him, to convey his feelings. However, the romances culminate with Olivia and Sebastion together and Orsino marrying Viola. The romances that were thought to exist at the play's opening completely changed by its end and the outcomes were totally unexpected. This satirizes the randomness of love.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jordan in that the play opens with a romantic feel, but as it progresses, it becomes more and more comical. For the sake of comedy, Shakespeare satirizes Olivia's relationship with Sebastian and Cesario. She loves Cesario, but when she figures out that Cesario is actually Viola, she doesn't seem to affected by it. She simply goes with Sebastian. It shows how some people go into relationships and try to get married without really knowing the other person.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty much in agreement with both Jordan and Nick. Shakespeare seems to be depicting romance as random and kind of impulsive or flighty. At the very beginning, Orsino is absolutely obsessed with Olivia. He carries on about her for over three months, but when she marries someone else he's completely fine about it. I think that Shakespeare is making fun of people who are overly dramatic about love, because although he claimed that his love for Olivia would never die, Orsino is fine with marrying someone who he previously thought was a guy. With Olivia, Shakespeare is satirizing people who base their romance solely on looks. Olivia falls for Cesario, but when Sebastian shows up and Cesario turns out to be a girl she's fine about it because they look exactly alike.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the posts above. I think that Shakespeare is making fun of romance in general. He targets Olivia and Sebastion's/Viola's relationship the most though, showing how meaningless love based only on looks can be. Though Olivia was 'loved' by a man who said he would do anything for her, she still chose to go after Cesario, who had no power and no interest in her, only looks. Then, when Cesario turned out to be Viola, she was perfectly fine with taking Sebastion instead because he looked just like her. This shows how pointless this kind of love is. If a more attractive person showed up to see Olivia, who's to say she wouldn't just leave Sebastion for him?
ReplyDeleteI don't think Olivia liked Cesario because of looks at all. Olivia has power, and she loves it. She could have whoever she wants and she knows it. Orsino groveling and drooling over her is not attractive to her at all, because she knows she could have him if she wanted. I think Shakespeare is saying that women want what they can't have. When Olivia first talks to Cesario, she's just being a flirt like she normally is. She doesn't really want him until he says he doesn't want her. Because Cesario is out of her reach, he is the only one she wants. When Sebastian sleeps with her, she sees it as Cesario finally caving. She has accomplished something. Women in power aren't going to settle for a man within their reach. They are going to work to get what they want and then enjoy what they have accomplished.
ReplyDeleteGoing along with what Courtney said, I think that it is basic human nature to always want more. It is rare to find someone who is satisfied with something of a "lesser value" than what they are used to or capable of getting. When you achieve that thing that you have been striving so hard and long for, however, the feeling of the accomplishment is magnified.
ReplyDeleteAs Courtney said, this idea is exemplified in the relationship between Olivia and Cesario/Sebastian, but it is also equally exemplified in the relationship between Orsino and Viola. Viola is attracted to Orsino, even though, it would seem, there is no possibility of the two falling in love. When Viola finds out that Olivia loves her instead of Orsino, it gives Viola a sort of hope that it could happen, but it is still distant. At the end of the play, when the relationships are flip-flopped and traded, there is great hapiness between the two couples.
I also agree that Shakespeare is making fun of romance. The fact that Olivia was not completely turned off by the fact that Cesario was actually Viola, but rather is content with her brother because he looks like her. The same is true with Orsino and Viola, Orsino has know Viola as a boy and all of a sudden he is alright with the secret she is a woman and now it is alright to marry her. I think Shakspeare is trying to show how easily people can get caught up in love or feel like they are really in true love.
ReplyDeleteI think Courtney hit the nail on the head. It seems as though this whole play is about the various characters being completely infatuated with the one other character in the play with whom they were completely incompatible. Viola had been in love with Orsino because he was a respectful, loving, renaissance man. However, since she was pretending to be his male servant, there was no way their relationship could develop. Orsino loved Olivia with a burning passion, which put another damper on Viola's hopes for love. Olivia does seem to have little respect for Orsino, as Emily stated, because he is willing to do anything for her--he is not a challenge. Olivia chooses to go after Viola because of her boyish good looks and rebellious, crude attitude, as well as her refusal to accept Olivia's love for her. Olivia, however, cannot sway Viola because Viola, who is in love with Orsino, is loyal to Orsino, who is in love with Olivia. Olivia's servant who wore the yellow stockings is another example of a character who was totally in love with another, but had no chance to develop a relationship. I believe Shakespeare is satirizing the lengths people are willing to go to and the frenzied pace in which they act when they believe they are in love.
ReplyDeleteShakespeare is satirizing relationships by declaring that you never truly know a person. If someone can deceive you by putting on a disguise, and, yet you still immediately ask for their hand in marriage, then that shows how little a person needs to know before they're in love. Shakespeare is emphasizing that love is really blind and what lie on the inside may not reflect the person's outside appearance. Olivia, however is the foil of this ideal, because she is concerned with appearance, and when two cesarios show up she becomes, how do you say, excited. Shakespeare is saying how there are several different types of love, but they may not be distinctively superior of inferior to others
ReplyDeleteIn the 12th Night, Shakespeare uses Olivia and Viola/Cesario, to satirize two different outlooks on love. As Court said, Olivia is the type of lover that likes to be in control and works to get what she wants. This is exactly why she is attracted to the "hard to get" Cesario and not to Orsino who is basically throwing himself at her. Viola is a much more logical lover. It would have been much easier for her to reveal to Orsino that she was a woman as soon as she relaized she loved him. I think the reason she hid her identity for as long as she did was to show Orsino that she was intelligent and more than just a pretty face. Viola knew that she would be more respected and better judged intectually as a man than a woman. That being said, however, the relationships in this play are rather spontaneous and are the typical intinctive kinds of relationships that Shakespeare likes to satirize.
ReplyDeleteI think Shakespeare, while being satirical, is making the statement that true love is when someone deceives you and you let them come back. When Olivia finds out that Cesario was actually Viola and Sebastian is a totally different person, she is OK with it because she fell in love with Cesario (who at least looked like Sebastian). This is satirical because she falls for Cesario for his words and then stays with Sebastian because he looks like Cesario. This irony proves to satirize the paper-thin nature of "love at first sight" and the hypocrisy of loving just a personality. Orsino and Viola, however, represent a truer love because Viola loves Orsino genuinely for his personality and, after Orsino finds out he has been tricked, allows Viola back into his life. Sebastian and Olivia's relationship is not on the level of completeness that Orsino and Viola's relationship is.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Shakespeare is satirizing the human romance and its wildness, but I also believe that he is satirizing the role of women in his time period. At that time, women did not play a huge role in such things as politics or sciences. We see Olivia take a dominant role in her "relationship" with Cesario and eventually Sebastian. Shakespeare could also be saying that love is not bound by the sentiments of society by putting Olivia in such a dominant and powerful role. Shakespeare also alludes to the mystery of love through the several relationships in Twelfth Night.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree with everyone above I think that Shakespeare is also satirizing the effect that love has on the mind in the way that true love can take over the thoughts of a person so completely that they at times lose their senses. In Twelfth Night it is quite clear, to the audience at least, that Cesario (Viola) does not care for Olivia in a romantic sense, Olivia, partly because of her desire to control her relationships as she has been forced to control the household, as mentioned above,and partly because the ideas about love that Cesario is putting forth are so enchanting, is caught up with her love for Cesario and does not see the signs that he (Cesario) is putting forward. Similiarly, the power of love is so strong that we see Orsino become controlled by Cesario (VIola's) words even though it is believed that Cesario is a boy because his mind is on love (his for Olivia) and that love takes him over. SO, to wrap up all of this confusing love/name-game, I'd say Shakespeare is definitely trying to mention how powerful the feeling of love, or even lust, possibly, can be.
ReplyDeleteErin
I agree with Jordan's comment about how love is often illogical. Olivia falls in love with Cesario while Cesario is trying to court Olivia for Orsino. This is a great example of the tangled web that love can create. What makes this situation even more ridiculous is when Cesario's identity is revealed, Olivia is still in love with Sebastian even though she originally fell in love with Cesario.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Connor. Shakespeare is definitely poking fun of the myths of love at first sight, and loving only one's personality. Shakespeare also seems to be warning against these two misconceptions, in a rediculous manner, but effective. Any person in the audience would agree that the apparent "love" felt by all parties is insane, however those same people would readily admit to believing in love at first sight. Shakespeare uses this play to show that, while love at first sight is a nice warm and fuzzy idea, it is really an impossible and ludicrous ideal.
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