Gender roles in the Elizabethan age were staunchly more set than in today’s modern world. Compared to today’s relatively free environment where gender identity can be explored, Elizabethan audiences expected to see only two genders: male and female. The big shakeup in Twelfth Night, or What You Will offers a look into the duality of man and woman. At the end of the play, the heteronormative status quo is restored with the ambiguously gendered pairings by having Viola being united with her beloved, Duke Orsino, and Olivia content with her marriage to Sebastian. However, closer examination of the characters may suggest that perhaps Shakespeare meant for the significance of the romantic pairings was to challenge gendered identity and sexuality,
