Late at night, Sir Toby and Sir Andrew are drinking and partying riotously and even manage to convince Feste to sing a love-song for them when Maria comes in to warn them that Olivia might ‘[call] up her steward Malvolio and bid him turn [them] out of the doors’. Despite her caution, Sir Toby starts singing again and Malvolio enters angrily and accuses the party-makers of being ‘mad’, having ‘no wit, manners, nor honesty’ and ‘no respect of place, persons nor time’ and after having vented his spleen on them, leaves, warning them that he will go and tell Olivia all about what they have done. While Sir Toby and the others are angered and complain about how Malvolio is always spoiling their fun and acting superior and superciliously towards them, Maria tells them to ‘be patient for tonight’ and explains she will ‘gull’ him with a practical joke as revenge for his arrogance and mistreatment of them.
Maria explains she will forge a letter that will ‘make a contemplative idiot of him’, supposedly written by Olivia, and address it to Malvolio, making sure he recognizes himself as the subject of the letter by describing ‘the colour of his beard, the shape of his leg, the manner of his gait, the expressure of his eye, forehead, and complexion’ and using the letters M.O.A.I to name the subject of the letter. In the letter, she tells Malvolio that if he is to earn Olivia’s favour, he must wear ‘cross-gartered yellow stockings’, smile all the time even when he is with her, act haughtily, be ‘surly’ with servants and disagreeable with relatives and refuse to explain himself to anyone. The next day, in Olivia’s garden, Maria instructs Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and Fabian, one of Olivia’s servants, to hide behind a shrub and then she puts the letter on the ground for Malvolio to find. Daydreaming about becoming Olivia’s husband and count of Illyria, Malvolio wanders up, finds the letter, believe that it is truly Olivia written to him and joyfully decides to follow the requests. In Act 3 Scene 4, he enters Olivia’s gardens when she calls for him, wearing the yellow cross-gartered stockings and smiling/laughing constantly (‘ho, ho!’). Confused by his outlandish behaviour, Olivia decides that he is mad (‘Heaven restore thee!’) and demands someone take ‘special care of’ Malvolio. Sir Toby and the others put him ‘in a dark room’ and tie him up- which was believed to be a remedy for madness in Elizabethan times. Feste then dresses up as a priest and taunts him cruelly. At the end of the play, Malvolio is released and after being revealed that he was tricked, swears he will ‘be reveng’d on the whole pack of you!’ and storms off stage angrily. This rather unpleasant ending for his character could be considered as anti-climax for the play; everyone gets a happy ending (marriages, pairing-off) yet Malvolio stays miserable and grumpy. Therefore, we wonder how the Elizabethan audience would reacted to this ending; with humour or sympathy for Malvolio?
Firstly, it can be argued that Maria and the others’ ploy is the main comical aspect in Twelfth Night and that Malvolio has quite a prominent comic role in this play. He is the stereotype of a Puritan with his anti-partying attitude and demonstrates one of the seven deadly sins (pride) through his supercilious behaviour. One major element of comedy in the prank is that Malvolio believes Olivia loves him and doesn’t question it. Here Shakespeare makes use of dramatic irony. The audience knows Olivia has no idea about the letter, does not love Malvolio and thinks he’s mentally unwell but Malvolio continues to stride around in his yellow stockings, laugh strangely and talk about her letter with no explanation whatsoever. We also know from Maria that yellow is a ‘colour she [Olivia] abhors’ and ‘cross-gartered [stockings], a fashion she detests’ which increases the comedy of Malvolio’s obliviousness. Furthermore, the visual slapstick comedy of the stockings would have appealed to the audience’s humour. The colour yellow is very bright and over-flashy and not very professional for a servant to be wearing and the absurd cross gartering prod fun at his puritanism, making him out to be very conservative (cross-gartering hold socks up to cover the leg).
He is also introduced as a character trying to change his status, imagining himself as ‘Count Malvolio’ being revered by different people, including Sir Toby, before finding the letter in the garden, which would have made him an instant dislikeable character to the Elizabethan audience at the time. They believed trying to transgress what God had given you was a sign of arrogance and rejection of God’s power; a steward aspiring to be a noble count was not acceptable! Since he is a strongly disliked character, the Elizabethan audience would have found watching him get duped hilarious despite his rather unfortunate ending where he doesn’t get a happy ending like the others, as they enjoyed laughing at what was ‘disgraceful’ and seeing this arrogant kill-joy and over-bearing authority figure being mocked. Also, in contrast to many of Shakespeare’s tragedies, there is no one who dies or is in great pain in the end, which the audience would have considered a bonus for Malvolio who escapes with only a revengeful spirit. The Elizabethan audience would have also been accustomed to worse endings for people; they were a lot more used than a contemporary audience would be to seeing horrible, bloody things happen (e.g. executions, bear-baiting etc.) so Malvolio’s end would have seemed very light and humane to them. Malvolio has numerous faults that made the audience dislike him, so humane punishment or not, they would probably sill have found it funny if he had suffered worse. Indeed, Malvolio uses unsuitable, bawdy and sexual language towards Olivia when he makes his entrance in the yellow stockings: ‘To bed? Ay sweetheart; and I’l come to thee’. This shows he is actually not as ‘proper’ and conservative as he acts most of the time and his coarse vulgar way could shock the audience and make them dislike him more. Also, his love for Olivia could seem forced and artificial to the audience; he is in love with Olivia’s status instead of her as a person. In the garden, he is speaking of how he imagines married life with Olivia but his dreams are not very focused on herself but very centred on him, ‘Count Malvolio’ and how he wishes be honoured by various different people. The ‘branched velvet gown’ he describes himself as wearing as count is a very detailed aspect of his imagination, showing he concentrates more on his potential luxury than on his love for Olivia. This makes his love for Olivia seemed forced and unreal. He doesn’t really want her; he wants her title. Besides, the other characters dislike Malvolio which increases his unpopular reputation amongst the audience; even Maria, Olivia and Feste who are kinder, more appealing characters. Olivia says Malvolio is ‘sick of self-love’ and Maria calls him ‘the devil’ and ‘an affectioned ass’. This view of Malvolio’s unredeemable faults is further supported by his seeming to not have learnt his lesson by the end of the play. He remains proud and boastful and continues to look down on everyone: ‘I am not of your element’ ‘I’ll be revenged upon the whole pack of you’. The metaphor ‘pack’ compares Mariah, Feste, Sir Toby and the others to animals, emphasising his unkindness and arrogance. Therefore, we can assume that the Elizabethan audience would have found Malvolio’s fate very amusing as they would have had little sympathy for him and would have enjoyed seeing him mocked.