Name: Nurul Lidyanti (1600888203005)

Title: Twelfth Night

Writter: William Shakespeare
Drama Elements

a. Theme: Gender, Metatheatre and theme that parallel the folly of the festival it is
named after.

b. Plot:
“Twelfth Night” is a play about desire’s power to override conventions of class,
religion, and even gender. Several characters begin the play believing they want
one thing, only to have love teach them they actually want something else. Orsino
thinks he wants Olivia, until he falls in love with Viola (dressed as Cesario.) Olivia
thinks she wants to be left alone to mourn her brother, until she also falls in love
with Cesario. She then thinks she wants Cesario, until she meets Sebastian.
Malvolio thinks he wants to be a straight-laced Puritan, until the prospect of
Olivia’s favor causes him to act like a fool. As Twelfth Night is a play about
overturning the social order, the most sophisticated characters prove to have the
least self-knowledge, while the least sophisticated characters easily see through
the pretensions of their so-called superiors. Desire acts as a leveling force, forcing
characters to gain self-knowledge. Orsino realizes his love for Olivia is misguided,
Olivia abandons her vow not to love for seven years, and Malvolio is revealed as
the pompous jerk he really is. Feste the Fool has the last word, ending the play
with a bittersweet song suggesting the darker aspects of reality lurk under the
frivolity and merriment of the play.

c. Characters:
 Viola - a shipwrecked young woman who disguises herself as "Cesario"
 Sebastian - Viola's twin brother
 Duke Orsino - Duke of Illyria
 Olivia - a wealthy countess
 Malvolio - steward in Olivia's household
 Maria - Olivia's gentlewoman
 Sir Toby Belch - Olivia's uncle
 Sir Andrew Aguecheek - friend of Sir Toby
 Feste - Olivia's servant, a jester
 Fabian - a servant in Olivia's household
 Antonio - a sea captain and friend to Sebastian
 Valentine and Curio - gentlemen attending on the Duke
 A Servant of Olivia
 A Sea Captain - friend to Viola
d. Point of view:
The overall point of view of Twelfth Night is dramatic, but it follows certain
characters more than others, encouraging the audience to sympathize with their
particular perspective and sensibility. In Twelfth Night, the most privileged
characters are Viola and Feste. Viola and Feste possess the greatest insight into
themselves and other characters. The play is partial to these two perspectives
because they form the sensible and sober anchors of an otherwise raucous free-
for-all. We get the least insight into Malvolio’s point of view, so we enjoy the jokes
and pranks the other characters play on him. Malvolio is separated from the
others both by his Puritanism and his disapproval of the songs, drinking, and
frivolity the others value. If Malvolio is the play’s outsider, Viola and Feste are the
insiders of the play, providing a consistent point of reference while also instilling
a dose of sanity into the madness of Twelfth Night’s universe.

e. Dialogue:
The dialogue in the play. For example, Duke Orsino: If music be the food of love,
play on; Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so
die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall: O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound,
That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no
more: Tis not so sweet now as it was before. O spirit of love! how quick and fresh
artthou, That, notwithstanding thy capacity Receiveth as the sea, nought enters
there, Of what validity and pitch soe'er, But falls into abatement and low price,
Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy That it alone is high fantastical.

f. Setting:
 Place: Illyria was an ancient region of the Western Balkans whose coast
(the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea which is the only part of ancient
Illyria which is relevant to the play) covered (from north to south) the
coasts of modern-day Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Montenegro, and Albania.
 Time: on 2 February 1602.

g. Performance:
“Twelfth Night” is a Shakespearian comedy about mistaken identity, gender
confusion, love and suffering it causes and the foolishness of ambition. I will be
comparing Shakepeare’s text from Bevington’s “The Complete Works of
Shakespeare”, to both the 2003 film version of Twelfth Night directed by Tim
Supple and the 1996 film Twelfth Night directed by Trevor Nunn.

h. Music:
"O Mistress Mine" (Act II, Scene 3) and "Come Away, Come Away, Death", "Come
Away, Death" (Act II, Scene 4), "O Mistress Mine" (Act II, Scene 3), "Adieu, Good
Man Devil" (Act IV, Scene 2), "Hey, Robin" (Act IV, Scene 2), and "For the Rain, It
Raineth Every Day" (Act V, Scene 1).