Twelfth Night

Words: 900
Pages: 4

In Twelfth Night, a play authored by William Shakespeare, personalities are crucial to each character. An imperative portion of a personality is one’s morals. The four humours depend on morals since a personality type is an interpretation of one’s actions and morals are established on how one acts. The four humours that the characters’ correspond with include: phlegmatic, melancholic, choleric, and sanguine. The characters who represent three of the humours are Sir Toby Belch, who portrays sanguinity, Duke Orsino, who portrays the choleric temperament, and Malvolio, who portrays melancholy. In contrast to the Duke’s and Malvolio’s belligerent disposition, Sir Toby displays a spontaneous outlook on life. …show more content…
The Duke showed his unpredictable nature when he learned that Cesario was a girl. Upon realising that Cesario was Viola, he fell in love with her. Moments earlier the Duke threatened to murder Cesario for Olivia’s love. This expresses unpredictability since within moments he changed his mind drastically. The Duke is persistent, for four acts of the play the Duke’s love for Olivia was intense. He refused to stop loving her despite her resistance. “Once more, Cesario,\Get thee to yond same sovereign cruelty” (II.iv. 80-81). This revealed his persistence since when he was advised multiple times to stop disturbing Olivia and ignored all the …show more content…
For the rules, Malvolio is rarely flexible; he not only embraces the rules, but inhabits them, hence, his rigidness. For example, Malvolio criticized Maria, Feste, Fabian, Sir Andrew, and Sir Toby for being noisy. Malvolio threatened to punish Maria since in theory, he is Maria’s superior. This exhibited his rigidness since he heavily enforced the rules in a situation that was unnecessary. Along with Malvolio’s obsession with the rules, he does not conduct himself properly with others, thus his unsociability. For example, when Malvolio reads Maria’s letter purporting to be from Olivia, he engages in unwise behaviour merely because he believes he is obeying her commands. Malvolio is a megalomaniac and perhaps his aspiration to obtain Olivia’s stature diverted his concentration. This proves his unsociability since he should have identified that the atypical behaviour was a terrible idea. The letter told Malvolio to wear yellow stockings that were cross-gartered, act discourteous towards people of superiority and the servants, and to smile