William Shakespeare’s comedy “Twelfth Night” explores the themes of identity and self. In a bid to protect herself after the death of her brother and father, Viola, the main character, seeks refuge in the guise of a male. In one day, she is transformed from an upper-class female into a male servant name Cesario. Viola states her decision and its objective in these words: “O that I served that lady,/ And might not be delivered to the world/ Till I had made mine own occasion mellow.” But this change of identity makes Viola miserable because she finds herself amid a conflict where someone falls in love with her thinking she is a male and she loses the love of the one she fancies.
Viola is the cause of her impossible situation but she doesn’t want to blame herself. She understands the seriousness of her situation: “As I am man,/ My state is desperate for my master’s love./ As I am woman, now alas the day, What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe!” This disguise says a great deal about a person’s self and his sense of identity. It also discovers the importance of gender. While Viola is disguised as a male, she cannot help falling in love with a male which shows that despite her guise, she is very much a woman deep down. The guise has offered protection but it has taken away the sense of self which is very important to a person: “Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness/ Wherein the pregnant enemy does much.”
The play also raises an important question: how far is it okay to pretend to be someone else? The play also answers this question upon analysis. A person can never be happy when he is pretending to be someone he is not. Happiness only comes from being honest and truthful and putting your true self forward. A person’s sense of who he is is closely connected with honesty. Viola’s disguise for example is an act of dishonesty that causes serious trouble in her life as well as in the lives of those around her. “She loves me sure, the cunning of her passion/ Invites me in this churlish messenger”.
Despite her disguise, Viola understands and sympathizes with females for their lack of self-control and their shortcomings. “How easy is it for the proper false/ In women’s waxen hearts to set their forms!” She states “our frailty as the cause” Viola knows that what she has done cannot be undone: “O time, thou must untangle this, not I./ It is too hard a knot for me t’untie” and she is confused about everything. She feels like a woman but is considered a male by many. In contemporary society, this can raise some serious moral questions about people’s sexual orientations. If someone doesn’t feel like a man inside, should he still behave like one? And what is it that makes a male, a man? These are important questions that can be studied in the light of this play.