Gender Differences In Twelfth Night By William Shakespeare

In many of Shakespeare’s plays he uses disguise as a theme of illusion or use for self-discovery. These use of disguise as a plot device creates confusion and majority of the time laughter in certain plays. In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night the use of disguise is a blocking agents that leans more towards Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity. In Twelfth Night, Shakespeare writes a play that creates a denaturalization of gender differences that a reader wouldn’t normally find in plays during this time. The denaturalization of gender differences emphasize the same-sex love between characters by distorting the boundaries of heterosexuality. As stated, disguise is a blocking agent that has been used in many if not most of Shakespeare’s plays, especially his comedies. There are different levels to disguise in Shakespeare’s work. The first, being what Susan Baker calls “that of the cloak, the mask, the vizard, or the veil. These are devices for allowing the disguise of without asserting any particular disguise as” (305). The disguise-by-cloaking allows …show more content…
She believes that she has lost her twin brother Sebastian in the wreck. Viola decides to serve the duke, but realizing that she will be unable to because of her gender decides to use a disguise. She assumed the identity Cesario, which allows her to take on her brother’s history and behavior. Viola, disguised as Cesario becomes a page in the service of Orsino, the duke. Viola tries to use her disguise as Cesario to woo Lady Olivia, a countess. Olivia, instead of falling for Orsino, becomes woo’d by Viola, who against is still disguised as Cesario. What I find most interesting about this play, is that in original Elizabethan production, Viola’s character is a man, playing a woman, playing a man. The typical gender roles have been stripped away, having the actor ‘perform’ gender as well as the character they are