The play as a satire on Puritanism

Putri Nurlin

Many of the premier dramatists of the age has satirised the Puritanical beliefs and characters in
their works, to general public delight. Shakespeare uses satire in his play to direct the human
weaknesses, religious affiliation and also class distinctions.

However, in Twelfth Night, critics such as Hunter, Stopford-Brookes and Wood believe that
Shakespeare made an exception to criticising Puritanism through the character of Malvolio. By
mocking Malvolio’s morality and ridiculous behaviour, Shakespeare aims to denounce Puritan’s sober
society in early modern England. Puritans were depicted in the play as being selfish, idiotic, a
hypocrite, and a killjoy.

Malvolio’s vicious, self-centered, and self-righteous behaviour are being highlighted when he tries
to control Sir Toby and Sir Andrew’s drunken revels. He also threatens Maria that he will ruin her
career for providing them more wine and tries to humiliate Feste by attacking the profession of
clowns and jesters.

Puritan converts belonged to the middle-classes, and they also dislike the easy-going,
sophisticated attitudes of the nobility and thought that the aristocrats were setting a bad example for
the lower classes by promoting theatre, music, and other light-hearted revelry. They believed God to
be a stern, unforgiving judge, who would cast all sinners into Hell and would reward the ‘good’ and
‘virtuous’ people into Heaven. To give an example, Malvolio uses offensive language, and tries to
discredit Feste by saying that he has no wit. He even dares to say that those who enjoy jesters are
jesters themselves, in an indirect way he is also offering his mistress. This is one of the traits that
could be related to his Puritanism, he does not like the jokes or the songs the jesters sing because
Puritans disliked that kind of entertainment that was far away from the truth of God.

Puritans believed themselves to be spiritually more superior as compared to everyone else and
which can also be seen to be explicitly represented in Malvolio’s character. As evidence, despite
Malvolio being a steward in the household of the Countess Olivia, he is not friendly, courteous,
graceful or refined opposed to the basic requirements of a steward. Moreover, he possesses a great
deal of conceit, self-righteousness, and pride, by considering himself to be ‘better’ than the others and
often over-estimating his own intelligence, refinement and status. He imagines himself to be educated,
sophisticated, sober and holds in contempt less ‘perfect’ humans such as the drunken revelers.

The conclusion that is given by Wood in this regard, Malvolio is indeed a type of personification
of the dark side of Puritanism which Shakespeare finds more ridiculous than evil. Despite that, the
Bard decided for once to show both the Puritans and the Elizabethan audience that, as in the play
itself, such extremist trends can only become ridiculous in the eyes of normal, easy-going people with
natural loves, desires, happiness and sorrows. No Puritan or other fundamentalist, should have the
right the suppress exhibitions of spontaneous joy and laughter.

Sources

www.brainyquote.com/topics/puritanism
http://quizlet.com/214122440/twelfth-night-critic-quotes-and-arguments-flash-cards/
http://mural.uv.es/mamagui/puritanism.html
http://www.scribd.com/document/144211547/Puritanism
http://www.scribd.com/document/144210302/Orgins-of-Puritanism
http://sites.google.com/site/clackamascommunityanimelover/analyzing/malvolio-and-puritans
http://www.jstor.org/stable/25120573?seq=3#metadata_info_tab_contents