Twelfth Night
Lola Adegbesan, Ana Manchala
Olivia in Twelfth Night
We know one thing about Olivia: she's beautiful and everyone wants her hand in marriage. But is beautiful all she is? WQhat else is there to her character?
Countess Olivia is the beautiful heiress in Twelfth Night grieving her father and brother. With no husband to tell her what to do or how to balance her checkbook, she pretty much does what she wants. Are Duke Orsino, Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Malvolio all in it for love? Or are they just idolising the money and socila status that comes with it?
Three men, one beautiful, rich and wealthy woman. Love or money? Money. The answer is pretty clear. It is my understanding that these men just believed that having pretty rich woman running around with no one in charge of her would make an easy target. Even Olivia's uncle, Sir Toby Belch, is onyl concerned about whether or not his niece's future marriage will be advantageous for him!
The point being made here is that Olivia's staus as a ticket for men places her at the centre of the play int erms of marriage and social status.
When the play opens, Olivia is in deep mourning for her brother. Yet the onyl real mourning we see is that she wears black, weeps and abandons herself from the company of suitable bachelors. If this play were a tragedy, many would feel sympathetic towards her due to her losses, yet it seems that Shakeshpheare meant for Olivia to be shown as a little ridiculous in terms of her mourning. In Act 1 Scene 5, Viola disguised as Cesario enters her house. Yet before he sees her, she calls to her maid: 'Let him approach. Call in my gentlewoman......Give me my veil: come, throw it o'er my face. We'll once more hear Orsino's embassy'. Once reading this, one may not see what the issue is. But that becomes clear once we read on and look at the pieces of the puzzle we have before us.
Before these lines of speech, Olivia asks what kind of gentleman is at the gate. Malvolio describes him as a young man who is handsome enough. Before he described him as ahndsome, she replied only by saying, 'He shall not speak to me'. Yet as soon as 'handsome and charming' coems into the picture, she says to let him enter. Not only does this show that she only cares about looks, but she just uses her mourning as an excuse to not see men and make them want her more!
Just to depict some more of Olivia's selfishness, in the same act and scene, she replies to Cesario's cry of no one seeing her beauty by saying: 'O, sir, I will not be so hard-hearted. I will give out divers schedules of my beauty. It shall be inventoried, and every particles and utensil labelled to my will: as-item, two lips,indifferent red; item, two grey eyes, with lids on them; item, one neck, one chin, and so forth. Were you sent hither to praise me?'. From this, we see how much she exaggerates her beauty, possibly putting more liveliness into her voice while sayign the last line of her'beauty pageant speech'.
Feste the Clown, who happens to think himself the wisest in the play, goes out of his way to depict Olivia's behaviour as of a fool's. He says that she is the 'fool' for spending all her time mourning just to drive men towards her instead of living her life. Her somber demeanor is jarring in contrast to the play's festive character Sir Toby and Sir Andrew, who aprty all night while she weeps in her bedroom!
Yes, she is seen as ridiculous. But Duke Orsino is seen as ridiculous too. Both are self-absorbed. Orsino claims that he is in love with Olivia, but really he spends msot of his time daydreaming about himself and the idea of love as he wallows around his couch all day!
Olivia, like the Duke, spends all her time at home instead of engaging with others. She is also preoccupied with her own feelings of grief, which makes her just as self-involved as Orsino. What is the point? Love is great. Being self-involved? Not so much.