Pity for Malvolio

[Woland]

For those familiar with the play do you think there is any grounds to have pity on Malvolio?

[Woland]

Fine, since no one will answer this most pressing of questions , I'll answer my own question. Yes and no. There really isn't any room for sympathy for the suddenly ambitious Malvolio as a character, but there is some for his plight.

When the steward appears before Olivia cross-gartered in yellow stockings it is a such a gross violation of his earlier displayed love of modesty and control that, while hilarious, is such a sickening display of overreaching ambition that it damns Malvolio for the rest of the play, and rightly so. His display would be similiar to an evangelical preacher dressing up in drag.

If any sympathy is felt for Malvolio's imprisonment in the darkness (not a pleasant fate for a character that loves to be admired for his temperance), it is the pity one feels for a fool that brings about his own demise.

Note: the best Malvolio Ive seen is in Trevor Nunn's film adaptation. I dont generally like a young Malvolio, he needs to be older.

[Haven]

Woland I wasn't a member when you posted this, hence the slight delay...

I think that Malvolio was treated horribly by Sir Toby, Maria et al. In fact he was humiliated. His unrequited love for Olivia should surely have been enough misery to pile on one poor soul, but no he was lied to and made to dress up in ridiculous close, locked up and I'd go so far as to say 'tortured'. It is also interesting that he was the one character that Shakespeare, who as a playwrite never liked loose ends, left Malvolio's situation unresolved.

[ThomH]

There is no time for pity in Twelfth Night. Malvolio is an objection of the play's theme of festivity. The use of Malvolio is to show that if you are uptight and against all enjoyment, you will pay. I think Shakespeare was trying to show that you should always find time to enjoy yourself, and if you don't, you risk being alienated.

Also, as Twelfth Night is a festive play which would have been shown at banquets and such, I think the use of fooling Malvolio could be a satire of puritanical living (which the audience of the time would have found very humorous)

[Beewulf]

Originally Posted by Haven

Woland I wasn't a member when you posted this, hence the slight delay...

I think that Malvolio was treated horribly by Sir Toby, Maria et al. In fact he was humiliated. His unrequited love for Olivia should surely have been enough misery to pile on one poor soul, but no he was lied to and made to dress up in ridiculous close, locked up and I'd go so far as to say 'tortured'. It is also interesting that he was the one character that Shakespeare, who as a playwrite never liked loose ends, left Malvolio's situation unresolved.

Perhaps Malvolio is treated poorly, but within the context of the play, he gets what he deserves. I disagree, though, with what you said about loose ends. In Shakespeares' comedies, malevolent characters like Malvolio are usually resolved in one of three ways: they are rehabilitated, silenced, or exiled. See, for example, Egeus in "Midsummer," Don John, in "Much Ado," Parollles in "All's Well," Duke Frederick in "As You Like It," and so on. Malvolio goes off in a huffy self-exile promising revenge, but to say that this is a loose end because we don't know if he comes back or gets revenge, is like saying "Hamlet" is unresolved because we don't know what happens to Horatio. The important question is answered, the rest is silence . . . and fertile ground for the imagination.