12th Night: Gender Identity Disguise

In Elizabethan times women were not allowed to act on the stage, so the youngest looking men were always reserved to play the role of the women. In Twelfth Night the theme of gender uncertainty is prevalent throughout the play. The female character of Viola disguises herself as Cesario, a man. This would be funny to see a male actor playing a female disguised as a man... very confusing. This creates a mess of the sexual identity of the play. Viola falls in love with Orsino, but cannot tell him since she is disguised as a man, while Olivia (Orsino's love interest) becomes infatuated with Cesario (Viola). This creates a latent undertone of homosexuality between the characters in the play. Olivia is in love woman, Orsino comments on Cesario’s beauty and is attracted to her (Or is it him? Now I’m confused…) even before Viola reveals her true identity. Shakespeare creates a hot mess between characters and their love interests. In his time period, homosexuality was a taboo subject, so to have it as a central theme of a comedy in very daring.

Shakespeare highlights the different mentalities in the genders even more vividly when Orisino says, “There is no woman’s sides / Can bide the beating of so strong a passion / As love doth give my heart. No woman’s heart / So big, to hold so much. They lack retention. / Alas, their love may be called appetite, / No motion of the liver, but the palate, / That suffer surfeit, cloyment, and revolt; / But mine is all as hungry as the sea, / And can digest as much. Make no compare / Between that love a woman can bear me / And that I owe Olivia,” (II.iv.91-101). Orsino says that women cannot love like men do, they can only love in a superficial way. He claims his love is constant, but in reality it is a woman’s love, Viola’s for him that remains constant throughout. Orsino’s love interest changes from Olivia to Viola once she reveals herself as a woman. Shakespeare’s use of gender role confusion creates comedic love triangles that cause characters to act foolishly.