Twelfth Night Group
Question:
speller
Student
High School - 9th Grade
What part does self-deception play in Twelfth Night, especially in regard to the character Malvolio?
Answers:
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Posted by filaw on Friday May 2, 2008 at 1:53 PM
Toby and Maria set up a ruse for Malvolio in the letter. However, it is Malvolio's sef deception that allows this small prank to take on a grand scale. In the letter, Maria (disguising her handwriting as Olivia's) never outright names Malvolio as the man about whom she is writing. It is Malvolio's own self pride and overinflated ego the allows him to convince himself that the letter must indeed be about him. The audience is very aware of this, as he reads the letter, much of the joke is based around that fact that given a tiny crumb of a clue, Malvolio extrapolates extreme and propesterous conclusions. We are aware of the riduclous nature of his conclusions, but Malvolio, painfully, is not. Even to the end of the play, when Olivia asks the Malvolio forgive the prank and move on, he refuses to recognize his part of the blame at all, and merely promises revenge.
