What exactly was the reason for Viola s diguise? She says o make her occasion "mellow" but was there a deeper reason?
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What exactly was the reason for Viola s diguise? She says o make her occasion "mellow" but was there a deeper reason?
By the line containing "Make mine occasion mellow what my estate is" I believe she meant she wanted to hide her status from the world until she decided to reveal it. In Shakespeare's time, it wasn't easy to be a woman alone in the world--she wanted a way to make her life easier. Also, I've heard it debated that she genuinely had some sort of gender confusion--perhaps some sort of trauma from the idea of her brother dying?
The main reasons, I would say, are to protect herself and to get a job. Depending on the production, she can be unsatisfied with contemporary women's roles, but that would probably be secondary. Also, she's trying to keep Sebastian with her.