Twelfth Night Act 1 Scene 3 Summary and Analysis

Act I: Scene 3

Summary

At Olivia's house, Sir Toby Belch, Olivia's uncle, is criticizing his niece for mourning the death of her brother so profusely. He says to her serving girl, Maria, that his niece is melodramatically overreacting, and he thoroughly disapproves. Maria disapproves of several things herself: she disapproves of Sir Toby's arriving at such a late hour, dressing so slovenly, and drinking so much. Only yesterday, Olivia complained of these things, plus the fact that Sir Toby brought someone who he thinks is the perfect suitor to the house, Sir Andrew Aguecheek. Despite Maria's calling Aguecheek a "fool and a prodigal," Sir Toby is proud of the chap — a fitting suitor for his niece: Aguecheek, he says, receives three thousand ducats a year, plays the violincello, and speaks several languages. Maria is not impressed. To her, the man is reputed to be a gambler, a quarreler, a coward, and a habitual drunkard.

When Sir Andrew joins them, there follows a brief exchange of jests, most of them at Sir Andrew's expense. Maria leaves, and the two men discuss Sir Andrew's chances as a prospective suitor of Olivia. Sir Andrew is discouraged and ready to ride home tomorrow, but Sir Toby persuades him to prolong his visit for another month, especially since Sir Andrew delights in masques and revels and, as Sir Toby points out, Sir Andrew is a superb dancer and an acrobat, as well. Laughing and joking, the two men leave the stage. It is obvious that Sir Toby has a secret and mysterious purpose for wanting to persuade Sir Andrew to stay and woo the fair Olivia.

Analysis

With this scene, we are introduced to still another set of characters: in the modern idiom, we have already met the "upstairs" characters; now we meet the "downstairs" characters. Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and Maria form the subplot that counterbalances the main plot. Sir Toby Belch, as his name implies, is characterized by his heavy drinking and by his obese, corpulent frame. In an earlier play, Shakespeare created a similar type of character in Sir John Falstaff (See Henry IV, Part I and Part II); this character was extremely popular with Elizabethan audiences, and Sir Toby is reminiscent of the earlier Sir John; both are plump, jolly knights with a penchant for drinking, merrymaking, and foolery of all types. In this play, Sir Toby spends most of his time complimenting Sir Andrew so that the latter will continue to supply him with money for drinking and cavorting. Sir Toby's niece, we discover, is too withdrawn in her melodramatic mourning to be aware of the partying going on in her house, but when she does become aware of it, she disapproves and relies upon her steward, Malvolio, to keep her household in order; thus, Malvolio will soon become the butt of the partymakers' jokes.

Maria, another member of the subplot, is Olivia's vivacious, clever, and mischievous maid. She comes from a Shakespearean tradition of servants who are wittier and cleverer than the people who surround them. Thus, she will be seen to be far more witty than Sir Andrew Aguecheek is, and he will become the object of her many jokes and puns, but he will never realize the extent to which Maria ridicules him.

Sir Andrew Aguecheek is necessary for the plot mainly because he is in possession of three thousand ducats a year, and Sir Toby is anxious to remain on good terms with him so as to be a recipient of the eccentric knight's beneficence. Consequently, he continually plots ways to make the knight think that Olivia is indeed receptive to the romantic overtures of the tall, skinny, ridiculous knight. Now we know that two vastly different people, Duke Orsino and Sir Andrew Aguecheek, are both seeking the hand of the Lady Olivia. Later, Malvolio will become a third "suitor," by a ruse played upon him by Maria and her cohorts.

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Twelfth Night Act 1 Scene 2 Summary and Analysis

Twelfth Night 

Act I: Scene 2

Summary
Viola and a sea captain and several sailors enter. They have been shipwrecked on the seacoast of Illyria and have barely escaped drowning. The captain congratulates Viola on not being drowned, for he tells her that when their ship split in half, he saw her brother, Sebastian, tie himself to a mast; yet even that, he fears, did not save Sebastian, for he saw him and the mast borne away on the waves. According to the captain, there is a slim chance that Sebastian survived, but there is a strong possibility that only the captain, Viola, and these few sailors are the sole survivors. Viola is appreciative of the captain's kind, if cautious, optimism; she gives him some gold coins and asks him if he has any idea where they are. The captain does; he knows Illyria well. He was born and reared here, and he tells Viola that the country is governed by a "noble Duke," Duke Orsino. Viola recognizes the name; her father spoke of him. The duke is a bachelor, she believes.

The captain is not so sure that this fact is still true; he says that according to current gossip, the duke has been seeking the love of "fair Olivia," but he says that Olivia is a virgin and that she is determined to remain so. Following the death of Olivia's father (a year ago) and the death of her brother (just recently), Olivia forswore men altogether.

The story intrigues Viola; she herself is now in mourning for her brother, Sebastian, and nothing would please her more than to serve Olivia. The captain, however, says that such a plan is impossible. Olivia will see no one. For a moment, Viola ponders, then she devises an ingenious scheme. She will disguise herself as a young eunuch, and she will pay the captain handsomely for his aid if he presents her to Duke Orsino. She will sing for the duke, play any number of musical instruments for him and — in short — she will ingratiate herself in his household. The captain agrees, and they exit.

Analysis

With the shift of this scene to the seacoast of Illyria, we meet another principal character in the comedy — Viola — and in meeting her, we hear more about the Lady Olivia, and even though their names are almost perfect anagrams (a rearrangement of the same letters in the names), and even though they are in similar dramatic situations in this play, they are vastly different women. Both of them have recently been orphaned, and, to all outward semblances, both have lost a brother and are therefore alone in the world. But here the similarity ends. Olivia is indulging in her grief, but whereas Viola deeply grieves for her brother, she is still able to function in the practical world. Unlike Olivia, Viola, shipwrecked and alone, does not have time to indulge in her grief. Being a shipwrecked virgin maid on a strange shore and knowing no one, she must use her wit, her intelligence, and her ability to analyze situations and characters. Consequently, Viola decides to disguise herself as a man for a very practical purpose — to assure her own protection in an alien world which would not respect a young virgin maiden. And with the assumption of this disguise, we will have the beginning of a complicated series of disguises which will run throughout the remainder of the comedy.
Viola's uncanny ability to intuit other people's ideas enables her to trust the sea captain; he can help her carry out her plans and keep her identity secret. Without his trust, her plans would fail, and after she has assumed her disguise, she uses it to its fullest potential — that is, she never passes up the opportunity to use her disguise in order to make puns and double entendres for parodies and satires and, ultimately, to comment subtly on the disguised biological difference between herself and the Lady Olivia. In other words, while the disguise provides Viola with security and protection, it also allows her to utilize her wit for her own enjoyment and also for the enjoyment of the audience.

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Twelfth Night Act 1 Scene 1 Summary and Analysis

              Twelfth Night

By William Shakespeare                                                                                

                                

               Summary and Analysis

Act I: Scene 1

              Twelfth Night

By William Shakespeare                                                                                

                                

               Summary and Analysis

Act I: Scene 1

Summary

Orsino, the Duke of Illyria, is sitting in his palace and enjoying himself by listening to music. He is in love and is in a whimsical, romantic mood, luxuriating in the various emotions which the music evokes. But he impulsively decides that he has heard enough, and after sending the musicians away, he expounds on the subject of love. Curio, one of his pages, asks his master if he wouldn't like to hunt; perhaps exercise will cure his master's soulful, philosophical moodiness. Orsino replies that he would like to hunt — but he would like to hunt the lovely Olivia, to whom he has sent another of his pages, Valentine, as an emissary. At that moment, Valentine enters. But he brings such bad news that he begs "not [to] be admitted": Olivia's brother has died, and she has vowed to mourn her brother's death for seven years. Surprisingly, the news does not dampen Orsino's spirit. He rhapsodizes on how a girl with such sensitivity can express her emotions; if she "hath a heart of that fine frame," he says, then she would be even more devoted and loyal to a lover.

Analysis

Twelfth Night has always been one of Shakespeare's most popular plays on the stage. On a first reading of the play, some students find the play difficult to come to grips with. This is because so much of the delight of the play comes from viewing the play. One must imagine the opening of the play with musicians entering and playing lovely music of a languid and melancholy nature to match the mood and personality of Duke Orsino's mood.

The general setting of the play is also significant. Shakespeare always set his comedies in faraway places so as to emphasize the ethereal quality of the romance. The name "Illyria" would be as little known to his audience as it is to today's average person; the fact that such a place did in fact exist on the Adriatic coast is of no importance to the play, for the name itself evokes images of faraway places filled with intrigues and love, and this is the concept that is emphasized throughout the play by the extensive use of music. In some productions, in addition to the songs played and sung on the stage, languid background music is played throughout the comedy.

The duke is in love, and his famous first lines announce this feeling:

If music be the food of love, play on!

Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,

The appetite may sicken, and so die. (1-3)

But the duke is not in love with any one particular person (even though it would be foolish not to acknowledge, of course, the Lady Olivia); but most of all, the duke is in love with love itself; after all, the Lady Olivia has rejected his protestations of love, and yet he continues to insist that she marry him. The duke thoroughly delights in giving himself up to the exquisite delights of his own passions, but actually he does little to try to possess the object of his affections. In fact, this is the reason why he will later use Viola (Cesario) to do his courting for him.

The duke's character is set in his first speech. At the same time that he indulges in the sentimental music, he impetuously grows tired of it and dismisses the musicians. The duke then evokes the metaphor of the sea, which he likens to love. The sea is vast, as is the duke's capacity for love, but the sea is also changeable, unstable, and constantly shifting its mien. At the end of the comedy, the duke, significantly, will shift his love from the Lady Olivia to Viola within a moment; thus we should not be disturbed by this quick change. Feste later compares the duke's love to an opal, a gem which constantly changes its color according to the nature of the light.

When we hear that the Lady Olivia is going to mourn her brother for seven years, her desire to remain "cloistered like a nun" for seven years identifies her as a person of extreme romantic sentimentality, one who is not in touch with the real world; thus, she is a romantic counterpart to Duke Orsino. When the duke hears the news, he is pleased: if she can remain devoted to her brother for so long, it means that she has a constant heart; therefore, she will be constant to a lover forever, when the time comes. The duke then lies down; he goes to his "sweet beds of flowers" (usually an ottoman or lounge) in order to sleep and dream, believing that "love thoughts lie rich when canopied with bowers." In this short opening scene, we have seen the duke restless and enamored of love, tired of love, and finally ready to sleep and dream of love.

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