‘Twelfth Night’ or ‘What You Will’ by William Shakespeare: A Brief Sketch of Malvolio’s character or the Portrait of Malvolio/ Malvolio’s melancholy and its reasons/ Malvolio, the false puritan/ Reasons or causes or sources of Malvolio’s sullenness or melancholy or moroseness/ Tragedy in the comedy

 


We come across the character called Malvolio in William Shakespeare’s five-act comedy Twelfth Night or What You Will. Malvolio is the main character in the subplot of this comedy. Broadly speaking, he venerates his dreams, though they are usually melancholic or gloomy by nature and in character.

In course of the play, we come to find that Orsino, the Duke of Illyria, dreams of Olivia’s hand. In this connection, we must note that Malvolio, the steward to Olivia, also, dreams the same as the Duke. However, it has to be mentioned that both of them are ensnared due to their own mistakes. Yes, they mistakenly confuse dreams to be real. Malvolio has been alleged of being too sick of loving himself. Most conspicuously, this remark has been made by none other than Olivia. As we see, he is self-obsessed through and through. Apart from that, Malvolio is an advocate of untrue puritanism. He is usually too serious to bear with the revelry of Sir Toby Belch and of his comrades. He finds Maria’s amiable nature to be intolerable indeed. He feels scornful to the jokes that are cracked by Feste, the clown, in the play. Although Feste’s comments are full of wit, Malvolio can never make out the reason of Olivia’s mirth and encouragement to these. It sounds to be pretty interesting that the false puritan in this play daydreams that he is the husband of Olivia. Perchance, these add to his moroseness or his melancholic nature from the beginning to the end of the play. Because of being treated malevolently by Sir Toby Belch, Maria and Feste the clown, he goes away from the stage with his face hanging down in sullenness. Unlike anyone else in the play, Malvolio never gets cure to his obsession for the sake of living peacefully. Although we find sources of laughter in course of the play, it is true indeed that it is not a comedy from the end of Malvolio. In this regard, we must keep it in mind that someone’s comedy is someone else’s tragedy. Weal and woe are part and parcel of this life in every respect.

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