William Shakespeare, in his well-known comic play, Twelfth Night, creates a plot that revolves around mistaken identity and deception. Mistaken identity, along with disguises, affects the lives of several of the characters. Shakespeare's techniques involve mistaken identity to bring comedy, mystery, and complication to the play. Some characters in this play turn to disguise in order to succeed in life, beginning with Viola in the exposition; who disguises herself as a eunuch and goes by the name of Cesario to be able to work for the Duke. Furthermore, Malvolio who is portrayed as crazy and finally the confusion between the twin characters of Viola and Sebastian which is resolved at the end.
Others may argue that the comedy conventions in Twelfth Night don’t come from the theme of mistaken identity but from other aspects such as Sir Toby and Andrew’s physical/drunken behaviour, using the medieval comedy convention of bawdy humour the characters of Toby and Andrew create a sense of humiliation towards themselves. This could be supported by the critic Bergson as he says “the comedy is made to humiliate lesser characters” meaning that there is a sense of absurd comedy about it. This type of behaviour is seen as absurd as we don’t expect ‘Sir’s’ to get drunk often and act with bawdy humour.
However, mistaken identity destroys this idea of humiliation as Shakespeare did not want to deliberately humiliate the characters, he simply wanted to create comedy using the conventions of sarcasm , hyperbole and dramatic irony which allow the structure of the play to flow perfectly as this is what every comedy needs. Could talk toby and Andrew – physical humour, medieval - bawdy. Traditional - smile at end – happy ending.
Maria, Olivia’s gentlewoman, also creates confusion and deception to the play, to Olivia’s head servant, Malvolio. Malvolio is a character of a puritan meaning that he is very religious, strict, and serious. Most importantly, he wants to impose his religion on others. This type of character is a good outlet for comedy as most people find it easy to mock those with religious beliefs as we see when Maria says ‘The dev’l a puritan that he is’ (Act 2 Scene 3 line136) Maria says to sir Toby ‘I can write very much like my lady your niece’ (Act 2 Scene 3 Line148-9). This suggests that she wants to write like Olivia to play a joke on Malvolio. In the letter, Maria (as Olivia) mocks Malvolio by telling him to dress in yellow stockings and cross garters.
The letter shows the intelligence of Maria, which shocks Sir Toby and Sir Andrew as they admire Maria’s plan to play a joke on Malvolio for spoiling their late night fun. The complication and theme of mistaken identity comes from Malvolio believing that the letter is, in fact, from Olivia when really it was Maria. We see that Malvolio falls for the joke when he turns up to the place that the letter said to meet dressed in what was suggested from ‘Olivia’ in the letter. This the portrays Malvolio’s mistaken identity plot as funny in many ways. This is intestinally used to create humour as it was uncommon for a woman to disguise themselves as males at this time in society. Others could interpret this as Viola using the cross-dressing as a form of grieving for her brother, Sebastian. This adds a sense of roman comedy to the play and also supports the critic Lee Jamieson when he says “the plot is often driven by mistaken identity”.
Through Viola's change in identity, this situation of mistaken identity creates conflict throughout the characters and also the audience. Dramatic irony then occurs when Viola falls in love with Orsino. While the love of Orsino, Olivia, falls madly in love with Viola. Olivia is now in love with a woman, and Orsino often remarks on Cesario's beauty, suggesting that he is attracted to Viola even before her male disguise is removed. This adds comedy to the play as it refers to a same sex couple and in the Elizabethan era, this was wrong. However, when seen on stage in a play, it is seen as funny to the audience simply because it is out of the ordinary.
The final theme of mistaken identity, complication and deception is revealed at the end of the play when the true identities of Viola and Sebastian are shown. The reveal explains a lot which has happened in the play including the confusion with Sebastian between Sir Toby and Andrew; we finally find out that Sir Toby and Maria are secretly married meaning that Twelfth Night certainly ends with a happy ending. This is traditionally comic as in the Elizabethan era, a marriage at the end of a play symbolised a happy ending which also follows the Greek comedy convention. The theme of mistaken identity adds a sense of the roman comedy convention to the play thus contributes to the traditional comedy throughout.
Overall, it can be agreed that Twelfth Night is largely generated by episodes of mistaken identity as without the confusion, there would be no real set out for the play. Additionally without mistaken identity, we wouldn’t have the main plot of ‘the love triangle’ including Cesario, Orsino and Olivia and also we wouldn’t see the confusion between the twins, Viola and Sebastian. However, the other mistaken identity episodes contribute to generate different types of comedy such as Malvolio reading the letter from ‘Olivia’. The play involves the comedy conventions of Roman, Greek and Medieval humour as we see mistaken identity, a marriage and farce situations. Mistaken identity plays a vital part in the play which is made up of several episodes that contribute many elements of comedy to the play which shows the importance of the theme ‘Mistaken Identity’
