Love affects us all in very different ways, and almost like a snowflake, one interpretation of love is never like another. Love prompts some of us to act without thought. Sometimes we may think that we are in love when really, we are just looking out for our best interests. In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, the theme of love is portrayed differently throughout its different characters. Shakespeare plays around with misguided love and the follies it brings about as a character is convinced that they are in the throes of passion. Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night casts a broad light on a wide variety of love, commenting on how it affects both men and women.
Shakespeare highlights that women and men have different priorities when it comes to finding someone worth marrying. At the beginning of this play, the audience witnesses the beginning of a love triangle between the Duke Orsino, Olivia, whom the Duke is in love with and, “Cesario,” who is actually Viola acting as a male servant for the Duke and loves the Duke but whom Olivia has …show more content…
Later in the same scene, when Olivia wishes to know more about the young messenger Cesario, she asks, “What is [his] parentage?” (1.5.281), further proving the point that women are only interested in status. In contrast, men in Twelfth Night tend to love in a more profound and passionate way. When speaking to Viola about his love for Olivia, the Duke says, “…no woman’s heart can bide the as doth give my heart” (2.4.104-105). And when trying to communicate to Viola how Olivia makes him feel, the Duke madly says, “I am, [as] all true lovers are, unstaid and skittish in all motions… save in the constant image of the… beloved.”(2.4.19-22) This expresses how Shakespeare gives the male characters a more all-consuming type of love rather than the seemingly immature love women
Shakespeare highlights that women and men have different priorities when it comes to finding someone worth marrying. At the beginning of this play, the audience witnesses the beginning of a love triangle between the Duke Orsino, Olivia, whom the Duke is in love with and, “Cesario,” who is actually Viola acting as a male servant for the Duke and loves the Duke but whom Olivia has …show more content…
Later in the same scene, when Olivia wishes to know more about the young messenger Cesario, she asks, “What is [his] parentage?” (1.5.281), further proving the point that women are only interested in status. In contrast, men in Twelfth Night tend to love in a more profound and passionate way. When speaking to Viola about his love for Olivia, the Duke says, “…no woman’s heart can bide the as doth give my heart” (2.4.104-105). And when trying to communicate to Viola how Olivia makes him feel, the Duke madly says, “I am, [as] all true lovers are, unstaid and skittish in all motions… save in the constant image of the… beloved.”(2.4.19-22) This expresses how Shakespeare gives the male characters a more all-consuming type of love rather than the seemingly immature love women