Beyond Comedy - The Tragic Fall of Malvolio in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald (Institut für Fremdsprachliche Philologien), course: Shakespeare's Comedies, language: English, abstract: What kind of play is Twelfth Night? This question has probably been raised by many readers of Shakespeare's play Twelfth Night and has moreover become a central aspect of discussion for numerous critics. It is thus not surprising to find several approaches of defining the tone, style or genre of the play in annotated editions, essays and study books. (cf. Cambridge School Shakespeare, Longman Study Texts) Although there are many ways of interpreting Shakespeare's Twelfth Night I want to spotlight one distinctive perspective, as it somewhat resembles the initial platform for this essay. 'A very amusing and charming play, sunny and always enjoyable. Filled with innocent laughter and preposterous situations, it has a happy ending which restores harmony [...]. All the characters are likeable and funny [...] even Malvolio has his comic appeal, especially when he gets what he deserves at the play's end. The whole play is simply a delightful entertainment which must never be taken seriously.' (Gibson 1993, 156) Following this interpretation of Twelfth Night however, the reader will miss much of the content that lies behind the comic apparel. Twelfth Night is not always enjoyable, as it often manages to shift the attention from the light play of love and illusion towards the more serious and worrying fate of characters like Malvolio. At yet another point in his review Gibson offers a more suitable angle to Twelfth Night: 'An upsetting play which seems light and amusing on the surface yet has dark and harsh depths. It is an uneasy play about outsiders who lose' (157). According to this quote, I argue that Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is more than just a pure comedy and even has tragic elements to it. Malvolio's function is not simply to serve as the embodiment of a self-centred and self-loving man, who needs to be taught a lesson, but he is the victim of a cruel prank, which eventually leads to his collapse in person as well as in reputation. Thus it will be the main focus of this paper to rethink Shakespeare's Twelfth Night as a play beyond comedy. It shall be discussed whether a classification as the one quoted earlier, grasps the whole meaning of the play or whether there are more layers to it - even underlying tragedies. With regard to David Willbern and his essay Malvolio's Fall (1978) emphasis will be put on the character of Malvolio and the question, if there is anything like a tragic fall in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.