Disguise and gender confusion
- Created by: lucystafford
- Created on: 24-03-18 14:05
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- Disguise and gender confusion
- Purpose of Viola's disguise
- Adds to the comical nature of the play
- Mistaken identity- common characteristic of Shakespeare's comedies
- Creates confusion and dramatic irony; the audience feel superior knowing Viola's true identity
- Necessary to develop the story line
- Shakespeare challenges Elizabethan conventions of women and love by giving Viola this disguise
- Critic's views
- Lisa Hopkins- traditional view that marriage provides comic closure is rarely achieved in Shakespeare plays
- Orsino and Viola's relationship is based on mistaken identity; still refers to her as 'boy'
- Juliet Dusinberre- Shakespeare portrays witty females to challenge social norms and sees men and women as equal in a world that declares them unequal
- Clara Caiborne Park- Shakespeare had a limited view on women- female assertiveness viewed with hostility
- Emma Smith- Orsino questions his sexuality, fell in love with Cesario
- Lisa Hopkins- traditional view that marriage provides comic closure is rarely achieved in Shakespeare plays
- Viola's disguise isolates her from the other characters
- She only has one soliloquy, where she confides in the audience
- She comments on the 'frailty' of women, she believes they are weak
- Women have been deceived by disguises since Eve was deceived by the serpent in the garden of Eden
- Realisation Olivia has fallen for her facade
- She comments on the 'frailty' of women, she believes they are weak
- 'Disguise I see thou art a sickedness'
- Apostrophe- speech is addressed to her disguise (personifies it)
- Shows the dominance of her disguise and how it controls her
- Apostrophe- speech is addressed to her disguise (personifies it)
- 'And I poor monoster'
- She only has one soliloquy, where she confides in the audience
- Viola's disguise allows her, paradoxically, to gain an intimacy with Orsino
- Given aristocratic courtships in the Elizabethan era, it is unlikely that men and women would have ever been alone together
- 'We men may say more..'
- Fake plural 'we', juxtaposed by Viola saying 'her' (meaning herself) shows Viola thinking about different identities and the strain of these adjustments on her disguise
- Purpose of Viola's disguise
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