Character Analysis Of Viola In The Play 'Twelfth Night'

Twelfth Night Essay Love is not always straight forward; it can weave into webs that never come untangled. Nevertheless, humans try to unravel them, but what they find is not always what they expect. In the play Twelfth Night, by William Shakespeare, the main character Viola is in a shipwreck which costs her her brother and alters her reality. She had recently lost her father and was on the ship with her twin brother, Sebastian. During the wreck, Sebastian was saved by a pirate, named Antonio, and Viola saved herself by grabbing hold of pieces of rubble from the ship. They floated in opposite directions and ended up alone, and scared. In the 1600 's it was important for a woman of high status to have a man to speak for her. In the past, when a woman was ready to marry, it fell to the family to find a man of equal status and high esteem for them to marry. Now her father and her brother were gone, she had no …show more content…
Thusly, Viola spoke with the captain of the ship and found out about a Countess who lived nearby named Olivia, who had also just lost her father and brother, respectively. Viola then made it her goal to work for this Countess, but unfortunately she was in mourning and was not seeing anyone. Nevertheless, Viola formed a plan. The Duke Orsino lived nearby and he was trying to court Olivia. Viola figured if she could be a eunuch for the Duke and get to Olivia through him. Thus, she disguises herself as a man, calls herself Cesario, and goes to work for the Duke. Almost immediately she falls for the Duke, but that presents a problem. Viola is to court the Countess Olivia, but she would rather he court her. The second side to this conflict is Olivia falls in love with Viola’s alter ego, Cesario. In Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare develops conflicts, both internal and external, between Viola and herself, the Duke and Olivia, and Olivia and Viola, in order to empathize that in