TWELFTH NIGHT ESSAY

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TWELFTH NIGHT

William Shakespeare’s play ‘Twelfth Night’, is an insightful and entertaining play, which employs the use of comedy to both captivate and engage its audience. Shakespeare ingeniously explores a rich variety of themes throughout the play, which are approved with the use of both dramatic and language techniques. The use of comedy throughout the play encourages audiences that it is an entertaining and thought-provoking piece of work. A play to me is entertaining when it shows a great sense of realism or a great sense of ridiculousness and Shakespeare expresses that feeling in ‘twelfth night.’ Entertainment isn’t just about the comedy present in the show, entertainment is also about the amusement and enjoyment. Things that are entertaining in the play centre on funny characters such as Malvolio who is easily fooled, and falls for a forged love letter. Mistaken identity creates more entertainment because they create tangled situations that can only be resolved when Viola and Sebastian appear together. Disguise is a motif which runs through the play and drives themes like appearance vs reality. A thought- provoking play makes you think about things in a deeper way and looks at life from many different perspectives. This thought-provoking work takes the reader into the fascinating world of experimentation that inspires Shakespeare. Feste’s play on words is funny but also thought-provoking because he seems to break down the barrier between the audience and characters and he literally has the license to say whatever he wants. Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth Night’ continues to entertain us in many ways. Twelfth Night is a very pleasurable play because of characters like Feste who is known as the clown, or fool, of Olivia’s household. He travels between Olivia’s and Orsino’s homes. He produces his living by creating pointed jokes, singing old songs, being generally humorous, and offering good advice cloaked under a layer of silliness. In spite of being a specialized fool, Feste often appears the wisest character in the play. Over at Olivia's place, Maria and Feste the Clown goof around, talking trash. Feste makes a dirty joke about how "well hung" he is when Maria tells him that Olivia will literally hang him because he hasn't shown up to work in such a long time. Olivia enters and orders her servants to "Take the fool away." Feste responds by saying something like "Hey – didn't you hear Olivia say take the fool away? (Act 1, scene 5) This displays that Feste knows who Olivia is talking about and understands that he is a fool. The language technique, rhythm, is expressed in Feste’s line (Hey, away). This is effective in making the play entertaining because of the way Feste says his line as if he knows what’s going on. Another entertaining scene is act 2 scene 5, Malvolio’s downfall is plotted. Feste plots with Sir Toby and Maria to humiliate Malvolio in front of Olivia. A love letter was written to Malvolio which appears to be from Olivia. In it, he is asked to wear yellow stockings, cross-gartered and to smile- three things Olivia hates. They hide behind a hedge to see the effect of the letter. Malvolio is convinced to follow the letters instructions. The practical joke played on Malvolio raises themes which, by now, are familiar: the unpredictability of identity, the importance of clothing in establishing one’s identity and position, and the illusions and mistakes that we let ourselves fall into in the name of love. A famous quote by Malvolio: ‘some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.’ This quote shows how passionate Malvolio is about Olivia and how over whelmed he is to receive this letter. The quote expresses the technique soliloquy because he is speaking his thought aloud while he is alone and betrays a lack of original thought. Most of the characters in twelfth night create the entertainment in the play.
Twelfth Night is a thought-provoking play because of the ideas it
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