Twelfth Night is a very good romantic comedy type of play by William Shakespeare. In this play, disguise and deception are major themes in this play. A main character named Duke Orsino is a ruler of Illyria and is one of the few people who deceive themselves. He thinks he needs love from Olivia, a rich countess, but he is really in love with the idea of being in love.
Orsino is desperate for Olivia’s love. He is so desperate for Olivia that he is deceiving himself, he shows this when he says:
“How will she love, when the rich golden shaft
Hath kill’d the flock of all affections else
That live in her; when liver, brain, and heart
These sovereign thrones, are all supplied, and fill’d
Her sweet perfections with one self king!”
(Act 1, Scene 1, L: 35-39)
He is not really in love but in love with the idea of being in love. He has probably only seen Olivia once and he thinks he will die if Olivia would not be his wife. “Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die. That strain again! It had a dying fall.” (Act 1, Scene 1, L: 2-4) shows that he is desperate for Olivia and will die if he does not get Olivia’s love.
The Duke is also a flexible person. Feste (Clown) describes him when he says: “Thy mind is very opal” (Act 2, Scene 4, L: 75). Feste says the Duke is a flexible person, whose mood changes. His mood changes when he requested a song from Feste, then he got bored by what he had just requested. His changeable mood makes sense because at the end of the play, he somehow immediately switched his love from Olivia to Viola.
The Duke is, according to Olivia and others, a perfect gentleman. When she says: “Yet I suppose him virtuous, know him noble, of great estate, of fresh and stainless youth; In voices well divulged, free, learn’d and valiant;” (Act 1, Scene 5, L: 247-250), she is describing him as a generous, noble, and very brave person. This is probably why Viola fell in love with Duke Orsino at first sight.
Duke Orsino, not only desperate for Olivia’s love, but he has a changeable nature which works out at the end of the play. The Duke plays a very important role in this play; he is a generous, noble, and brave person. His character is definitely different from the others and is a unique character of Twelfth Night.
