Love In Twelfth Night

In Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare, characters are gendered in the way they speak about love, as male characters, such as Orsino, articulate about love in a tactical and orchestrated way, while female characters, such as Viola, speak about love freely and off the cuff. These display of love, convey that male characters in the play view love as a goal that must be achieved and to do so must plan how to gain love. However for female characters love is a consequence of character and actions, it is not the goal for the female character to fall in love but rather, love just happens.
If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken and so die.
That strain again, it had a dying fall.
O, it …show more content…
“Give me excess of it that, sufeiting, the appetite may sicken and so die.” To Orsino 's love is both the vain and the reason of his existence, he hates the turmoil that comes from love but enjoys the emotions love brings him. To gain love you must have both the good and the bad. However Orsino wants love so badly that he calculates the ways to obtain it, he writes poems and marks his words with both poise and meaning. To Orsino 's love is a game he must strategize to win, it is a hunt and a challenge, as he is both the hunter and the …show more content…
“Make me a willow cabin at your gate And call upon my soul within the house” display what the feminine response of love coming from and engulfing the soul. Although she is disguised as a male, Viola cannot escape her true nature as a female and in attempting to give a male answer to Olivia question, reveals her female desire for love. Viola much like Olivia wants the object of her affection to fight for her love, to fancy her every moment of the day, and she want the person who desires her to display their affection, rather than wallow in self-pity