‘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 M...