Themes, Motifs and Symbols for the Twelfth Night - 1858 Words

Themes, Motifs Symbols Themes Love as a Cause of Suffering Twelfth Night is a romantic comedy, and romantic love is the play’s main focus. Despite the fact that the play offers a happy ending, in which the various lovers find one another and achieve wedded bliss, Shakespeare shows that love can cause pain. Many of the characters seem to view love as a kind of curse, a feeling that attacks its victims suddenly and disruptively. Various characters claim to suffer painfully from being in love, or, rather, from the pangs of unrequited love. At one point, Orsino depicts love dolefully as an â€Å"appetite† that he wants to satisfy and cannot, at another point; he calls his desires â€Å"fell and cruel hounds†. Olivia more bluntly describes love as a†¦show more content†¦In the class system of Shakespeare’s time, a noblewoman would generally not sully her reputation by marrying a man of lower social status. Yet the atmosphere of the play may render Malvolio’s aspirations less unreasonable than they initi ally seem. The feast of Twelfth Night, from which the play takes its name, was a time when social hierarchies were turned upside down. That same spirit is alive in Illyria: indeed, Malvolio’s antagonist, Maria, is able to increase her social standing by marrying Sir Toby. But it seems that Maria’s success may be due to her willingness to accept and promote the anarchy that Sir Toby and the others embrace. This Twelfth Night spirit, then, seems to pass by Malvolio, who doesn’t wholeheartedly embrace the upending of order and decorum but rather wants to blur class lines for himself alone. Motifs Letters, Messages, and Tokens Twelfth Night features a great variety of messages sent from one character to another—sometimes as letters and other times in the form of tokens. Such messages are used both for purposes of communication and miscommunication—sometimes deliberate and sometimes accidental. Maria’s letter to Malvolio, which purports to be from Olivia, is a deliberate (and successful) attempt to trick the steward. Sir Andrew’s letter demanding a duel with Cesario, meanwhile, is meantShow MoreRelatedTwelfth Night- Literature Cape Unit !7125 Words   |  29 PagesTwelfth Night Criticism William Shakespeare and The Twelfth Night Known for his tragedies, comedies, sonnets and love stories, William Shakespeare is argued to be one of the best writers of his time. Throughout his plays, including The Twelfth Night, he uses disguise and deceit to fool the other characters to benefit another. Shakespeare was born in April of 1564 in the town Stratford-upon-Avon. Although the exact date of his birth is not known, historians traditionally celebrate it on the 23rdRead MoreContext Taming of the Shrew1767 Words   |  8 Pagesromantic comedies, The Taming of the Shrew focuses on courtship and marriage, but, unlike most of them, it devotes a great deal of attention to married life after the wedding. The other comedies usually conclude with the wedding ceremony itself. Themes (the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work) included throughout this text include Marriage as an economic institution and The Effect of Social Roles on Individual Happiness. As a romantic comedy, the play focuses principallyRead MoreThe Dramatic Importance of Act 1 Scenes 1 and 2 of William Shakespeares Twelfth Night4384 Words   |  18 PagesThe Dramatic Importance of Act 1 Scenes 1 and 2 of William Shakespeares Twelfth Night The title Twelfth Night seems to suggest that Shakespeare, who wrote the play around 1602, wanted it to be performed on the twelfth day after Christmas; the festival of the Epiphany. This day formally marked the end of the Christmas season, which at the time was celebrated as a special festival. In addition to eating, drinking and generally over indulging, the performance of plays wasRead MoreLiterary Analysis Of Animal Farm1614 Words   |  7 Pages When reading something new, we at times feel as if this is a story we’ve read before. Memory of past texts can strengthen these feelings as we identify repeating themes and motifs. Symbolism can push a reader deeper into the story by forcing one to see beyond the surface words and to truly understand the writer and their intentions. Understanding the patterns of writers can allow the reader to separate themselves from the text and examine it with a broader perspective. Recognizing these patternsRead MoreHow Fa Has the Use of English Language Enriched or Disrupted Life and Culture in Mauritius15928 Words   |  64 Pages(419). He uses granite as a reference to nature and portrays himself a part of the natural world once his soul leaves the body. The narrator closes his poem with an assurance of his self-existence. A very important reasoning is given in the twelfth stanza, â€Å"I exist as I am, that is enough† (413). This is similar to Rene Descartes philosophical term, Cogito Ergo Sum- I think, therefore I am (Wiki). The poet is assured that his existence is not a deception because he is â€Å"I† or the one who thinksRead MoreCeramics: Pottery and Clay17443 Words   |  70 Pagestemperatures , and thus more durable ware, it is likely that the very earliest ceramic work was too soft to have survived or perhaps too scarce to have been found. When studying the history of ceramics there are two separate but related themes to look for; The technology and the aesthetics. The technology develops in a fairly linear fashion and to a great extent is a measure of a cultures overall technical sophistication. At first, pots are made by hand with rolled coils and fired on the