Term Paper on "Theme of Love in Twelfth Night"

Term Paper 5 pages (1409 words) Sources: 1 Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Twelfth Night

The play, Twelfth Night, is all about love. While we generally associate love with positive emotions, Shakespeare illustrates in Twelfth Night that love is not always joyful but that it is also an emotion that causes pain, turmoil, and frustration.

Orsino, Viola, Malvolio, and Olivia are characters that demonstrate the power and our lack of power over love. While the theme of Twelfth Night is love, it is clear that Shakespeare wanted to show us more than the beautiful side of love - he wanted to unearth the drama that can sometimes be associated with love when it becomes bigger than life itself. Love is not always straightforward - it is often unstable and can create conflict. Twelfth Night demonstrates the many different directions love can take on the bumpy road to bliss.

The major characters in the play are either looking for love or they happen to stumble upon it. With this diverse group of characters, Shakespeare illustrates the vastness of love and all of the emotions - good and bad - it causes.

Love is indeed a powerful emotion. It makes us behave foolishly, it often strikes without warning, and, in many cases, it may seem like a disease. Shakespeare sets the mood for this romantic comedy by having Orsino speak these words at once:

If music be the food of love play on, give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,

The appetite may sicken, and so die

That strain again! It had a dying fall. (Shakespeare I.i.1-4)

From this opening scene, we become aware of the tone of the play as well as see what the power of love can do. For instance, Orsino loves love. In fact, he may love the idea of love too much. His feelings for Olivia are over the top - so much so that he seems like a raving lunatic. If he were living today, he might stalk her. His intensity, however, is critical because it allows us to see the influence that love, or what we think to be love, can have over us. What is significant about his "love" is the fact that he has succeeded in convincing himself that he is in love with someone that he rarely knows. He does not love her as much as he loves what she, or her lifestyle, has to offer him. "Love" in this case is blind and needs a does of reality to see the truth.

Shakespeare sets the romantic tone for the play when Orsino says, "So full of shapes is fancy/That it alone is high fantastical" (I.i.14-15). This statement is significant because it connects the notion of love, or the fancy, to the imagination, or the fantastical. These lines emphasize the previous point of music being the food to feed on in that it is all something intangible. It is a mystery and this makes love almost like a secret. However, it is not always something that makes us smile.

While love is lovely, it is not always positive. One of the downsides of love is that it cannot be controlled. Simply put, love will not be rushed and it operates on its own timeclock. We cannot tell ourselves whom to love. Olivia's infatuation with Viola is perfect evidence of this fact. We see her frustration when she says:

Even so quickly may one catch the plague?

Methinks I feel this youth's perfections

With an invisible and subtle stealth

To creep in at mine eyes" (Shakespeare I.v.294-97).

In more contemporary terms, we can say that love makes people crazy and it makes people do crazy things.

While love is the primary focus of the play, we see that it is not always flowers and butterflies. Shakespeare does provide a happy ending, for the most part, but it not so easy getting to that point. Along the journey, Shakespeare is sure to teach us a few lessons about love. One lesson that we learn is that love is can be painful at times. For example, Orsino describes love as an insatiable appetite that he is unable to satisfy.

I.i.1-3); and his yearnings are "cruel hounds" (I.i.23). Similarly, Olivia refers to her amorous feelings as a "plague" (I.v.296).

In addition,… READ MORE

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