Role Of Desire In Twelfth Night

Olivia and Desire In the seventeenth century comedic play, Twelfth Night, Shakespeare uses Olivia to display how one’s desire affects others’ emotions, which changes how people feel about the person who has desires or about a situation. Desire has importance as all people have some form of aspiration. Desire comes in three main forms: love, wishes, and orders or instructions, and Olivia displays all of these throughout the play. Thanks to Olivia’s desires, Shakespeare teaches readers how desires affect the actions and emotions of people. The most common forms of desire includes love, and desire by means love displays itself in many characters in the play and even in real life. Shakespeare uses Olivia’s love for Cesario to reveal how desire changes feelings. After Olivia first talks to Cesario, she says, …show more content…
Shakespeare gives Olivia many wishes throughout the play. When her brother does and she decides to not show herself, the servant tells Orsino, “The element itself, till seven years’ heat,/shall not behold her face at ample view” (I.i.28-29), which represents a wish for people to not visit her. The statement classifies itself as a wish because it seems to be almost a command, although it directs itself to the general people. The wish represents desire because Olivia wants it to be true. As for other people, her wish affects Orsino because it makes him think about her more, which reveals to readers that wishes can cause an increase in thoughts, or occupation of thoughts. Another instance includes when she talks to Cesario and desires to tell him she loves him, she says, “I would you were as I would have you be,”(III.i.149), a wish for Cesario to love her. Her declaration affects Cesario, and causes him/her to tell Olivia that he/she doesn’t want to love her. Cesario’s action displays that desire can lead to rejection by other people. By way of Olivia, Shakespeare presents how ambitions affect other