The comic subplots in Shakepeare’s Twelfth Night and Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus function in the overall structures of the plays in many ways. Specifically, I argue that they parallel the main plot, emphasizing the theme of self-love that dominates the main plot.
Within Twelfth Night, the emphasis that is placed on the theme of self-love is prominent from the moment the play begins. For example, it opens with the following speech by Orsino to himself: “If music be the food of love, play on/Give me excess of it, surfeiting/The appetite may sicken and so die” (1.1.1-8). In other words, Orsino focuses on how his love for her is so consuming that it makes him switch opinions on things. However, he does not even state her name within the entirety of the speech. This is a very self-absorbed approach to having a crush- people in love normally devote their free time to thinking about the actual person instead of how that love affects themselves. Orsino wants to be so gorged on love that he would become sick and his desire for Olivia would come to an end because it causes him much suffering. Conversely, this speech makes Orsino seem sick with self-love rather than the love he has for Olivia. This imagery of …show more content…
Without Malvolio to provide a comparison, Orsino’s self-love would not be nearly so obvious to the audience- his self-absorption would come off as romance instead. Similarly, the idea of self-love is also emphasized through the comparison of Robin and Rafe’s scaled down aspirations to Faustus’s loftier ones. That is, too much self-love will cause failure no matter what a person tries to achieve- the audience is able to relate to this theme through the subplot of Robin and Rafe. Overall, the comic subplots enforce self-love as a theme by paralleling the main plot in both
Within Twelfth Night, the emphasis that is placed on the theme of self-love is prominent from the moment the play begins. For example, it opens with the following speech by Orsino to himself: “If music be the food of love, play on/Give me excess of it, surfeiting/The appetite may sicken and so die” (1.1.1-8). In other words, Orsino focuses on how his love for her is so consuming that it makes him switch opinions on things. However, he does not even state her name within the entirety of the speech. This is a very self-absorbed approach to having a crush- people in love normally devote their free time to thinking about the actual person instead of how that love affects themselves. Orsino wants to be so gorged on love that he would become sick and his desire for Olivia would come to an end because it causes him much suffering. Conversely, this speech makes Orsino seem sick with self-love rather than the love he has for Olivia. This imagery of …show more content…
Without Malvolio to provide a comparison, Orsino’s self-love would not be nearly so obvious to the audience- his self-absorption would come off as romance instead. Similarly, the idea of self-love is also emphasized through the comparison of Robin and Rafe’s scaled down aspirations to Faustus’s loftier ones. That is, too much self-love will cause failure no matter what a person tries to achieve- the audience is able to relate to this theme through the subplot of Robin and Rafe. Overall, the comic subplots enforce self-love as a theme by paralleling the main plot in both