Twelth Night Act 3
Act three opens at the garden adjoining Olivia’s house. This garden is where lines 1 – 100 will occur. Often times the garden is portrayed onstage as a courtyard with real plants, a backdrop, or a combination of both. Several columns are usually added to Olivia’s house and the courtyard in order to add a Mediterranean atmosphere to Shakespeare’s Illyria. Twelfth Night takes place in Duke Orsino’s court, Olivia’s house, Olivia’s garden, and to a much lesser extent on a street and beach of Illyria. This allows for the production to have fairly elaborate scenery, because the set changes are simple and far enough apart to accommodate the minor adjustments that transform Olivia’s house into Orsino’s domicile. A play on gender and sexuality is the main action of Twelfth Night; however this scene focuses on the importance and duality of words. The primary action of act three, scene one occurs in the dialogue. What ensues is a brilliant example of Shakespeare’s mastery of the English language. Instead of the physical fighting found in Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet, Shakespeare creates a playful bandying of words and wit. The result of which adds an interesting dimension to Viola by merit of her quick wit and cl
Viola and Feste continue to verbally spar with each other until Viola tires of it. She claims that, “They who dally nicely with / words may quickly make them wanton.”(Act 3, scene 1, line 14). After more playful deliberations about Feste’s job title as Olivia’s fool, he leaves to call Olivia. However, before he leaves he taunts Viola for not having a beard, possibly making a final allusion to her true gender. Although the scene begins with a playful and harmless verbal bantering between two bright minds, that of Feste and Viola, it soon devolves to a darker look at how words can hurt people. Viola is quite aware that her rejection of Olivia is causing her much pain, yet she cannot be her true self without the risk of being hurt herself. This scene brings the reader back to the main plot, after having been diverted by the action of the Malvolio subplot in the previous scene. It also reveals a new side plot as Sir Andrew becomes interested in Viola, because of Olivia’s interest in her. Scene one is one of the most interesting scenes for an audience of Twelfth Night. It includes the climax of the main plot and has constant action from beginning to end. All this is accomplished almost entirely through dialogue alone. One might infer that Shakespeare wrote the scene to be foolproof, because all of the interesting events in the scene occur in the dialogue and require little stage direction. Shakespeare’s ability to captivate an entire audience without resorting to blood and guts or slapstick makes Twelfth Night an extremely clever comedy and an enduring classic. This
Some topics in this essay:
Twelfth Night,
Viola Feste,
Feste Viola,
Sir Andrew,
Orsino Viola,
Duke Orsino’s,
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Hamlet Shakespeare,
Orsino’s Olivia,
Feste Fool,
sir andrew,
olivia’s house,
twelfth night,
main plot,
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olivia loves,
3 scene,
scene 1,
comic relief,
andrew viola,
duke orsino’s,
sir andrew viola,
scene 1 line,
3 scene 1,
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Approximate Word count = 1081
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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