This essay I wrote a few months ago, I don't think the form is very good but there's some good content!
Explore the significance of this extract in relation to the comedy of the play as a whole:
In ‘Twelfth Night’, Shakespeare uses confusing identities, thrilling dramatic irony and the ridiculous problems and situations the unknowing characters work themselves into to make comedic scenes for the audience to laugh at.
Firstly, dramatic irony is heavily relied on for comedic effect in this scene and throughout the whole of ‘Twelfth Night’. In this particular scene, this literary device is at its peak – with Orsino being totally oblivious to the fact that Cesario, his trusted servant, is actually a woman. This dramatic irony builds up and up throughout the scene as Orsino speaks with Cesario and suggests he go and ‘act his woes’ to Olivia for him. He goes as far as declaring Cesario would be the best for the job for his alluring features are ‘semblative a woman’s part’ with his ‘smooth and rubious (lips)’, ‘shrill and sound’ piping voice and Olivia is sure to be impressed by Orsino’s attractive young messenger. The irony of this is amusing as Orsino clearly notices Cesario’s unusual feminine features yet still has not made the connection that she is a female. Orsino is not the only character in ‘Twelfth Night’ to be completely oblivious to the truth hiding in a situation. Malvolio, who has an important comic role in this play, has no idea he is being pranked in Act 2 Scene 5 and that his pranksters are hiding in a ‘box-tree’ in the garden, watching him read the prank letter, listening angrily to his selfish ambitions and wishing they could ‘pistol him’. The audience finds delight in the obliviousness of the characters and the power of their own knowledge of what is going on and so Orsino’s scene in particular is very funny because he brushes so very closely to the truth by commenting on Cesario’s feminine features but yet fails to discover the truth. While describing Cesario’s features, he speaks in long sinuous lines, punctuated only with commas and semi-colons, giving off a sort of dreamy and contemplative tone as if he slowly taking in Cesario’s feminine beauty and then suddenly narrows back down to the same purpose he sees for them in a shorter abrupt sentence: ‘I know thy constellation is right apt for this affair.’ This slow, pondering thought process he was going through is suddenly abandoned in a rather comedic manner – just as he was about to uncover the truth.
In addition, the building up of a love-triangle and beginning of romantic complications in this scene are elements of comedy. Indeed, after Orsino rants on about, he then orders Cesario/Viola to go and deliver the message of love to Olivia and ‘be not denied access’ and not ‘make unprofited return’. Viola agrees to ‘do [her] best to woo [his] lady’ only to then admit, in a quick aside to audience, that she actually does not want to for she has fallen in love with Orsino herself and wishes she ‘would be his wife’! This ironic contrast between these two phrases is amusing – part of her wants to do Orsino’s bidding but the other part wants to marry him herself. Her conflicting desires hint that this budding love triangle will lead to all kinds of romantic complications. This image of Viola trying to get another woman to court the man she actually likes herself is ridiculous and amusing for the audience who cannot help but anticipate the future and expect something hilariously disastrous to happen: will Viola bid her master’s will or will she formulate a plan to gain his love – perhaps prank Olivia? This sudden revelation has made the plot a lot more complicated, as Viola's love for Orsino is even more impossible than Orsino's unrequited love for Olivia. Disguised as a male servant, Viola can't even reveal her love. There was already the problem of having to woe an uninterested Olivia but now there is an even bigger problem as Viola loves Orsino and will have to undergo ‘a bareful strife’ to sort out her problems (which turns out to be Olivia falling in love with Cesario and leading to a very complicated love triangle). The audience enjoy the chaos of the situation – indeed it was Christmas entertainment for them in Elizabethan times with the amusing topsy-turvy elements of the Epiphany holiday.
Another element of comedy in this scene and explored throughout the whole play is that of mistaken gender identity. Disguises, mistaken gender identity, chaos and deception are all recurring comedic themes in ‘Twelfth Night’, a play designed for the Epiphany holiday with its chaotic reversed roles and identities. The audience is watching the plot knot up in all sorts of chaos and deception and finds humour in the disorder and bewilderment of the characters. Women dressing up as men was disapproved and unheard of in Elizabethan times but Shakespeare created humour not only in the multiplicity of disguise found in a female character who pretends to be a man but used the fact that women were not allowed to act back then to add an extra dimension to the complexity of his cross-dressing characters: a man playing a woman who is pretending to be a man! In this scene, watching everyone being fooled into believing that Cesario is a man is hilarious for an Elizabethan audience – who are unaccustomed to the notion of a cross-dresser and savouring the other characters’ naïve reactions. The irony of Orsino’s other servant Valentine telling Cesario he is ‘already no stranger’ to Orsino after only three days of working further entertains the audience – they know that Cesario’s true identity is actually still a complete stranger to Orsino as she is a woman and not a young man! Orsino’s heart-felt exchange with Cesario about ‘the passion of [his] love’ and ‘discourse of [his] dear faith’ for Olivia further establishes the degree of trust between the two and the irony of the idea that Cesario is actually deceiving him despite her desire to serve him is comedic – adding to the idea of entertaining chaos and to the rather ridiculous image of the gullible and foolish Orsino lapping everything up. The whole notion of deception is recurrent throughout the play and is the main asset to the plot – leading to the climax where Viola gets into trouble because she’s been mixed up with her twin brother Sebastian.
In conclusion, Shakespeare uses contrasting conations, amusing dramatic irony and effective fluctuation of sentence length to paint a comedic chaotic situation with deception and love complications with the purpose of entertaining the audience with funny topsy-turvy situations. It could be argued that he also used these elements of comedy to introduce new ideas that weren’t common in Elizabethan times, which he perhaps secretly desired to be able to practise himself, and strived to have a little more creative freedom through presenting these unusual things (such as cross-dressing etc.) as simple jokes to avoid any punishment or criticism.