Twelfth Night and Love

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In the play Twelfth Night the topic “love” is widely mentioned through out the play. “Love” can be considered as the most important theme of this play. All the characters in this play deal with some sort of love. Even though the play Twelfth Night has a happy ending, at some parts of the play, some characters do feel that love causes pain. There are three kinds of love that William Shakespeare uses in this play: true love, friendship, and self love. Self-love is when somebody thinks they are better then another person and is totally in love with themselves and doesn’t listen to anything anyone says that is against them. A few characters display self love in Twelfth Night, for example, Malvolio, with his love for Olivia, but it is a love that is selfish, and that he thinks that everyone is in love with him, and Olivia, with her thinking she is the best and that no one is good enough for her and her mourning of her brother for so long. In Act 3 Scene 1 line 145, Olivia tries to persuade Cesario/Viola to be with her, thinking that is can get anyone to be with she is astonish that Cesario denies her and then tells him that she will wait for him to enter manhood, but that will not happen cause Cesario is not a man. Malvolio Is the easiest to identify with the problem of self love. He sees himself as a handsome and noble man, he believes many women would love to be with him. He likes to see things one way only, and deceives himself just to suit his outlook on the situation. For Example, in the play he twists Olivia’s words around to make is sound like she admires his yellow cross-gartered stocking, when she really despises them. They are some if the many examples of Self love in the play. Friendship is show a lot in the play, between many people, including men and women. The Closest and biggest friendship would have to be between Orsino and Cesario. They Barely knew
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