One of Shakespeare's central
points in Twelfth Night is to show that things
really are not always what they seem to be, plus to show the consequences
of deception. Hence, nearly every character at some points conceals
reality behind some type of disguise, leading to various
consequences.
One of the most obvious examples is of course
Viola disguising herself as a boy servant. Viola made the
decision to disguise herself out of self-preservation. She arrived in Illyria as an
orphan after surviving a shipwreck. Her father died when she was thirteen, and now she
believes her brother, her one remaining guardian, did not survive the shipwreck, leaving
her all alone. More importantly, she is also a wealthy noble woman. Hence, she knows
that her wealthy, orphaned status puts her in a very vulnerable position. She first
expresses her desire to hide her true identity in order to protect herself in her
lines:
O that I served that lady
[Olivia]
And might not be delivered to the world,
Till I had made
mine own occasion mellow,
What my estate is!
(I.ii.43-46)
But
when the sea captain advises that Olivia would not admit her into her household due to
her state of mourning, Viola instead devices her plan to disguise herself as a eunuch
and go to work for Duke Orsino.
Naturally Viola's choice leads to a
couple of unanticipated consequences. For one thing, she
falls in love with Orsino and cannot proclaim her love for
him because, for one thing, she is pretending to be a boy, and for another thing, she is
pretending to be his servant, and servants of course cannot marry nobility. The second
unanticipated consequence is that Olivia falls in love with
her as a boy, which means that just as Olivia is breaking Orsino's heart,
Viola is now put in the position of breaking Olivia's
heart, a position that she certainly does not really want. Hence we see,
just as Viola herself later exclaims, "Deception, I see, thou art a wickedness," just
how much damage disguise and deception can cause
(II.iii.26).
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