Viola's Use Of Deception In Twelfth Night

Decent Essays
The use of deception often has an intentional purpose, whether it is running away from the mob or playing a character who represents a lost brother. In Twelfth Night the character Viola portrays a man named Cesario who represents her twin brother whom she thinks died in a boat crash. She uses the identity of Cesario as a form of mourning, while also keeping his image alive. While Viola uses the appearance of Cesario to mourn, Olivia tries to deceive everyone around her by putting on a veil and pretend to mourn. Some Like it Hot is about Joe and Jerry who dress as females and join a female band to hide from the mob because Joe and Jerry witnessed them commit murder. Joe and Jerry decide to use the names Josephine and Daphne respectively, to

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Girls disguise themselves as boys? The play Twelfth Night and the movie She’s the Man are not similar at all. First of all, the traits of the characters in the play are not at all similar to the ones in the movie. Secondly, the plot is different in the movie than the play.…

    • 745 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Romantic love is one of the most powerful emotions a person can have, so maybe that is why it drives people to use artificial methods to gain it. Many of the characters in Cyrano de Bergerac use synthetic ways to try and achieve lasting love. Cyrano de Bergerac, a play of love and sacrifice, was beautifully written by Edmond Rostand to tell the journey of a man named Cyrano in France during the 1600s. This place showcases Cyrano and his struggle to tell Roxane, his cousin, that he is madly in love with her. In attempt to relieve him of his feelings he accepts Christian’s plea of help and expresses his emotions through him, ultimately creating a love triangle.…

    • 1314 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Let’s say you have married the love of your life. It all seems swell, until he dies. Whether a death occurs in real life or in a work of fiction, the tragedy has the ability to change the course of life events and can develop a strong life lesson. In Cyrano de Bergerac, by Edmond Rostand, two deaths and one death scene provides a deeper significance to the theme than what may be on the surface.…

    • 2056 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Suzanne Young’s book, “The Program” is about a character named Sloane. She doesn’t want to be taken away by the program because they take depressed people and erase their minds. But she gets taken anyway, but she doesn’t get fully brainwashed and she has to go through a adventure of finding herself. The main idea of deception runs through the entire story and creates a complex lesson which creates you to think that deception makes people hide their true being, so they hold a grief which makes them do things they never thought they would. Deception can disguise your true feelings.…

    • 821 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Constantly committing trickery is a flaw, in many people both in real life and in stories, that always leads to unpleasant ends. In William Shakespeare’s tragedy, Romeo and Juliet, two lovers from powerful rival families, the Capulets and the Montagues, are married by a priest, Friar Laurence, without their families’ consent. This action ultimately leads to the deaths of the lovers and many others. All of this happens because of the priest’s determination to mend the rift between the families, even if he has to lie to the families to do it. Friar Laurence’s dishonesty and faithfulness is a clear flaw, expressed by the motif of poison, that leads to the tragic ends of Romeo and Juliet.…

    • 881 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Demonstrations of Deception in Acts One and Two Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, the Deceivers In the story Macbeth, by William Shakespeare there is several forms of deception by Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. The story sets place in Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s home, where the forms of deception occur to follow. The only reason why deception has to take place anyways is because of the dirty deed that the two have planned to do. In order to cover up for the killing of King Duncan that they did, they have to pretend and lie to everyone around them, so nobody begins to suspect them two.…

    • 670 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In the play Olivia has just lost both her father and brother, which leaves her extremely depressed and not wanting to be with anyone. Meeting Viola, or in this case Cesario, she falls deeply in love with the character. This causes issues for Viola because the comedic love triangle is formed with her right in the middle, because Orisno wants Viola to help Olivia marry him. Olivia finds Viola very compelling and attractive, she literally loves everything about him and declares it, “Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions and spirit, do give thee fivefold blazon (1.5.297-298).” Viola uses this to her advantage to convince the Duke to love her over Olivia.…

    • 1153 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Lady Macbeth's Deception

    • 516 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Lady Macbeth persuades Macbeth in finally killing the King of Scotland, King Duncan, shortly after Duncan announces Macbeth to be the Thane of Cawdor in addition to being the Thane of Glamis. When greeted with the opportunity, the duo share the same desire for power, however Lady Macbeth proves herself as the noble and more assertive one of the pair. Macbeth’s ambition, mindset and cleverness does not surpass Lady Macbeth’s ambition, mindset and cleverness when determining the tactics to get the throne. Lady Macbeth’s ambition gives her the will to kill Duncan unlike Macbeth, who is convinced the witches’ prophecy will come to fruition. He demonstrates his lack of drive to act on the prophecy when he says,…

    • 516 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Deception In Macbeth

    • 722 Words
    • 3 Pages

    To deceive somebody is to almost metaphorically stab them in the back. Going and doing an act of intentional violence whether it be mentally or physically is critical act of violence; especially if the violence ends up in one of the participant’s ever-lasting death. What are the purposes of such betrayal some may ask? At times, it seems like they are for no reason at all and the more crude answer, just for fun. The amount of deception is ramped in the play Macbeth written by William Shakespeare in the scenes of killing Duncan, Lady Macbeth messing up the guards, and Macbeth going to the extremes of murdering his own best friend.…

    • 722 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Deception In Macbeth

    • 661 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Macbeth was deceived by the witches and his wife which led to his cruel actions. Firstly, the witches come to the "kind" Macbeth with a prophecy (I.v.17). In the beginning, Macbeth never entertains the prospect of becoming the king or killing the king. It’s the witches who leave these toxic thoughts to fester in his mind. The third witch said, "All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter!…

    • 661 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Why Twelfth Night and She 's the Man are Alike Twelfth Night and She 's the Man are similar in some themes and plot, but only have obvious contrast between time periods, theme, and motive leaving it mostly similar. Twelfth Night is a play written by Shakespeare and is a play that takes place in the 1620’s and is about how Viola (the main character) disguises herself as a man and becomes a servant to a man to help a noblewoman (Olivia) go through the stages of grief after Olivia 's brother dies ; Viola is able to help because her brother died as well and knows what she is going through, but Viola doesn 't know that her brother is alive and she looks like him because they 're twins so they end up crossing each other path and screwing up each…

    • 1185 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Twelfth Night was written near the end of Queen Elizabeth 's reign in England. The notion of a strong female, such as Elizabeth, choosing to lead a country without the help of a man began to provoke people to consider what truly a woman’s role was (Callaghan, 86). For the most part, up until this time literature strongly focused on powerful male leads that expressed dominance and intelligence greatly surpassing the minor female characters in literature (Callaghan, 32). Shakespeare 's Twelfth Night strongly questions whether men are superior to women or society has simply forced women into the background, ignoring women 's ability to rival men 's talents and rationale. Feminism in Twelfth Night detects negative attitudes towards women of the…

    • 1835 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Should gender stop someone from being who they want to be? During the early seventeenth century, many social barriers prevented people from being themselves, such as remaining the gender they were born with throughout their whole life. Any movement and straying from their gender, based on their biological sex, was not acceptable and was looked down upon. Societal structure and law made very clear that biological sex must be the same as sexual orientation. However, in the play Twelfth Night, or What You Will, Shakespeare creates Viola to manipulate gender ambiguities that allow her to express her true feelings and emotions to ultimately prove that gender is irrelevant in a relationship.…

    • 725 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Disguise In Twelfth Night Analysis

    • 1066 Words
    • 5 Pages
    • 1 Works Cited

    As Viola cannot show her love for Orsino, the only way she can express them is in her soliloquies to the audience, this contributes to the dramatic ironies. I believe dramatic irony certainly adds to the magic of Twelfth Night. The disguise also causes mistaken identity, an example of this is when Sir Andrew goes looking for Cesario, finds who he thinks is Cesario, strikes him, the person however is, Sebastian. Sebastian hits him in return, but sevenfold, and Sebastian having been in Illyria only a few days is proposed to by a beautiful lady and is hit by a man he had never seen before, "are all the people mad" Sebastian says. This is an extremely funny series of events started by the disguise of one single woman.…

    • 1066 Words
    • 5 Pages
    • 1 Works Cited
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Deception: Developing the Conflict and Characters in Macbeth Shakespeare uses deception as an underlying tone throughout Act I of Macbeth, to develop the conflict in the play, revealing the true nature of Macbeth. Every time Macbeth deceives another character, or even the audience, the conflict in the play becomes more complicated. When Macbeth first learns about his prophecy, he secretly begins to fantasize about murdering King Duncan, but says to Banquo, “The interim having weighed it, let us speak our free hearts each to other” (I, iii, 172-173). This quote begins to illustrate Macbeth’s deceiving nature, as he forces Banquo tell him everything, but he hides information from him. At the end of Act I, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth make plans…

    • 288 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays