Shakespeare In Love And Twelfth Night Analysis

Improved Essays
William Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night and the film Shakespeare in Love deal with the complexities of gender and sexuality. Even though the play Twelfth Night was published nearly four hundred years before Shakespeare in Love was released, Shakespeare’s play represents a more modern outlook on gender. Both materials involve cross-dressing, but cross-dressing is more of a feature in Shakespeare in Love, while Twelfth Night actually delves into the complexities of what it means to be either male or female. My belief is that one’s gender does not necessarily coincide with one’s biological sex. While transgendered people are still struggling to be accepted in today’s world, they have been experiencing much more acceptance than they have in the …show more content…
One person’s gender and sexuality may remain constant over the years. However, one’s gender and sexuality may change multiple times throughout one’s life. Both gender and sexuality have the potential to change, which can cause some confusion. Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night depicts gender and sexuality with a more modern outtake than Shakespeare in Love does. Throughout the course of Twelfth Night, the characters are presented with complex situations that are much more complicated than the events depicted in Shakespeare in …show more content…
Cesario is supposed to be a man, but Olivia is incredibly intrigued by Cesario’s feminine qualities. She has fallen in love with a man that is actually a woman in disguuise. The situation is much more complex than what is depicted in Shakespeare in Love. Perhaps Olivia is strictly a heterosexual female, since she has no idea that Cesario is actually a woman. On the other hand, maybe the situation with Olivia and Cesario demonstrates that one’s sexuality is not as definitive as one would initially believe. The feelings that Olivia and Orsino have for Viola are never truly clear, which demonstrates that one’s gender and sexuality can be rather fluid. These two concepts of gender and sexuality do not necessarily remain constant over

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    True lovers care about each other, and try to make each other feel better during the toughest times. When one expresses fondness, they do not attempt to be selfish or try to take advantage of the one they love, like what Orsino does. Again, in 5.1, Orsino is trying to take advantage of Olivia, by being greedy. When Orsino finds out Olivia is in love with Viola-Cesario, Orsino says: “Why should I not – had I heart to do it - / Like to th’Egyptian thief at point of death / Kill what I love – a savage jealousy” (5.1.106-08). If Orsino has true affection over Olivia, he would not threaten to kill her just because she is in love with another man.…

    • 1144 Words
    • 5 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

    The Twelfth Night or What you will is a play written by William Shakespeare in about 1601-02. It is a comedy which focuses around the romantic relationships of the twins Viola and Sebastian and their love interests Orsino and Olivia on the island of Illyria. The play has a comedic twist by including an element of crossdressing, which in turn brings much confusion to the romantic relationships of the characters. The Twelfth Night was written during the renaissance, which was a time of excess; in both the arts, beauty and frivolity. Shakespeare explores these areas of excess in the first monologue of the play by the Duke and throughout the course of the play.…

    • 1586 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior 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

    Olivia In Twelfth Night

    • 774 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Twelfth Night, a play by William Shakespeare, is about a love triangle between Duke Orsino, Viola, and the Countess Olivia where Orsino is trying to woo Olivia, who refuses his advances because she is mourning the death of her brother; Viola is in love with Orsino, but can’t show her affection since she is disguised as a man; and Olivia is in love with Viola disguised as Cesario. After all sorts of different complications getting in between their love for each other, Olivia marries Viola’s brother, Sebastian who was believed to be dead, and Viola and Orsino marry each other. I usually don’t enjoy reading plays, but Twelfth Night is an exception. It is witty, funny, and has a wonderful romantic plot despite its hard-to-follow Shakespearean…

    • 774 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    He depicts homosexual love in Twelfth Night as the strongest and truest love, by comparing it to the fleeting love based on beauty that Orsino feels for Olivia and Olivia feels for Olivia’s brother Sebastian. In doing so, Shakespeare attacks popular beliefs against homosexuality at that time. A paradigm of such love occurs between Antonio, a sailor, and Viola’s brother, Sebastian. Antonio rescued Sebastian from the shipwreck and, while he was nursing him back to good health, fell deeply in love with him. Antonio confesses his love after bravely following Sebastian to Orsino’s court, despite having many enemies there.…

    • 1503 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In William Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, he strides to portray the tides of love! But even for Shakespeare, It’s quite hard to grasp the understanding of love for theirs always arising complications that get in the way of lustful love; Throughout the play Shakespeare undermines the notion that true love even ever existed. The play is directed in Athens of Greece. And is made to make the audience question what they know is love; it starts out with unhappiness for Hermia is getting no choice in who she loves, for her father, Egeus is her creator and must abide by his wishes of whom she’ll marry or love; If she doesn’t marry Demetrious her father’s approved choice, Theseus the Duke of Athens will have her put to death by Egeus’s…

    • 1037 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    William Shakespeare wrote some of the most influential works in his time that still affect us today. Many of his plays have been adapted into movies; where some of these adaptations fall his plays almost exactly while some have their own take on his plays and are able to change the meaning of the play while still keeping the basics of it. For example, the 2006 movie She’s the Man was adapted from Shakespeare’s comedy Twelfth Night. She’s the Man is a modern version of the play with the same plot, relationships, and character names occurring in both.…

    • 1433 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    ‘“Night to His Day’: The Social Construction of Gender,” Judith Lorber’s article written in the mid 90s, describes western societies as having two genders: men and women. Lorber explains that, while they not wholly separate genders, transvestities and transexuals are “crossover genders” (2007: 43) floating in between society’s two genders. Society’s framework for gender affects everything a person does from the moment that person is born, without them even knowing it. The clothes a person wears, the friends a person makes, the job that person ultimately does or does not get: all affected by gender.…

    • 1097 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Olivia Seeney ENGL 377 Shakespeare 10/16/2015 The Treatment of Women in Hamlet “Frailty thy name is women” (Shakespeare)! This line from William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” perfectly captures the way women were described in this play. Throughout this play, the main character, Hamlet, consistently patronizes and belittles both his mother and his previous lover. The two women that are introduced in Hamlet represent two different stereotypical female roles.…

    • 1938 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Foolishness of Love in Twelfth Night Love plays a big role in everyone’s life. In most cases, affection is a wonderful thing that unites people together. But on occasion, love can be mad and crazy. Four hundred and fifteen years ago, William Shakespeare wrote the comedic play, Twelfth Night, in which the central theme of love was discussed. Twelfth Night is a comedic play in which humour is seen through the foolishness of love demonstrated by the characters: Olivia, Antonio, and Sebastian.…

    • 747 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Attaining independence through opposing gender roles in the 1600-1800 In the play Twelfth Night and the novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen female and male characters experience a phenomenon that had rarely been seen before in this time period. Gender roles had been an important part of history since the beginning of time and seemed to be respected and followed by citizen of all kind in England during the 1600-1800. Society had expectations for women and men and how they were expected to act, the assumption that women and men had to act their certain ways had been challenged and faced immediate qualification. Men were anticipated to be strong, willing and brave while women had to essentially be background noise in the focus of their lives.…

    • 1270 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    These days, many romantic poems, movies and books tell tales of one person loving another in which those feelings are not returned. We often see ourselves within the characters of these stories, which is what makes them so appealing. In our current era, unrequited love is still a greatly utilised theme in many books, such as “Dear John.” Nicholas Sparks writes, “I finally understood what true love meant…love meant that you care for another person’s happiness more than your own, no matter how painful the choices you face might be.” This quote very much relates to the characters in the play, “Twelfth Night” written by William Shakespeare.…

    • 1334 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Upon the meeting of the two, Viola, masquerading as Cesario, requests to see a glimpse of Olivia’s face. Claiming it would be more manageable to recite her letter, her master 's declaration of unrequited love. Olivia, agrees, but in a very disgruntled, unenthused fashion. For example, after drawing back her veil, she says, “...we will draw the curtain and show you the/ picture. Look sir, such a one I was this present./ Is 't not well?”…

    • 1936 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    A few examples of the characters that fit this type of love are Malvolio’s love for Olivia and Olivia’s love for Cesario. Another interesting aspect about the “Twelfth Night” is that the nature of love is both a pleasure…

    • 1342 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays