For those familiar with the play do you think there is any grounds to have pity on Malvolio?
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For those familiar with the play do you think there is any grounds to have pity on Malvolio?
Fine, since no one will answer this most pressing of questions :lol: , 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.
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.
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)
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Haven
I think it's a bit harsh to have no pity for Malvolio and a bit unfair to say he's malevolent. He is pompous, agitating, unlikeable, but he is one of the funniest guys in Shakespeare (even if it's all, on his part, unintentional comedy) and you have to give credit to a guy who, for all his obsessivenes with social dignity, would without hesitation do zany public things for love.
I think it's okay to sit on both sides of the fence on this one. Shakespeare was the greatest writer of all time and could create characters who get more than one emotional reaction from an audience.
As Beewulf says he does bring it all on himself but it's the bloody-mindedness of those conspiring against him that makes me feel sorry for M. They don't just humiliate him and leave it at that, they destroy him and hang his fantasies out for universal derision. It's hard not to feel sorry for a man who has been so utterly and irrevocably beaten and stripped of all his dignity.
Malvolio's attitude throughout the play makes it impossible for him to fit in the comic frame-work of the play. Some critics like Charles Lamb are of the opinion that Malvolio is dignified and honest and he does not deserve the treatment meted out to him. They point out that Malvolio does not care to acquire the ring given by Olivia which Cesario refuses to take. Malvolio throws it on the ground with "If it be worth stooping for, there it lies in your eye : if not be it is his that finds it".
Critics like Lamb fail to see the intention of the dramatist in creating Malvolio. They ignore the weakness of the character and exaggerate his virtues. They also failed to recognise the technical skill of Shakespeare as he reinforces the theme of self-deception through Malvolio in the sub-plot.
By introducing Malvolio in the play, by showing him unforgiving and revengeful in the end, Shakespeare points to the existence of a world of another order which poses a serious threat to human happiness and genial warmth of heart. Malvolio also serves as a clue to the knowledge that self-love is the source of all evil possible for man.
You're looking at the play in too theatrical a light. This discussion exists because Malvolio as a character and the way he is dealt with is one of the most intriguing areas in the play which it wouldn't be if he was simply an ideogram, or his journey the parable of the party-pooper. Obviously he's disdainful, but Maria and Sir Toby are worse in that they almost delight in humiliating him. That is their idea of fun; their 'human happiness' is clearly present in making him suffer, which is something I doubt Shakespeare was in support of.
I saw this play on the RSC last night, and the depiction of Malvolio was striking. Malvolio is a twerp but his love for Olivia is real and his pitiful attempts to woo her are tragi-comedy at its finest. I think it would be far too simplistic to say that Malvolio represents a satirical attack on the emerging Puritan movement during Shakespeare's lifetime, rather like Shylock, it could be suggested that the tables are turned and the play depicts the manner in which Malvolio is treated by the so called 'good' people, which is cruel and callous. Feste's persecution of Malvolio in detention has a dark side to it, foreshadowing the clown's speech at the end of the play.
I think the resolution of the comedy with the pairing off of the couples is critical to Malvolio's positioning in the play, which is where he he storms off after being thoroughly humiliated. Although, Twelfth Night is a comedy this lends a new perspective to the play and to the understanding of pleasure, which comes at someone else's expense.
Well, I think the main clue to this question, which I answer with a not loud yes, is these lines from 2nd act, 5th scene: what should that alphabetical position portend? If I could make that resemble something in me,--Softly! M, O, A. Mavolio is reading the letter that Maria has written to him having used her similar handwriting that is to Olivia's one. This is the inflection point. The conceited steward is searching desperately something which can aliviate him, something that resembles in him, and all that due to his ignorance, his lack of sense, his arrogance. At first sight, we should fell like laughing at it. But pay attention that looks like a clown without being paid for it. He's not counscious of his ludicrous. So he's pathetic. Consequently, I think we should fell sorrow for the Malvolio, as well as we should fell sorrow for the people like Malvolio in real life. He(they) deserves we to feel sorry for him. I think that is the lesson I read from the great W.S.
I think of an annoying colleague I once had at work when I look at malvolio. I lose all sympathy for malvolio after that, because I know how pitiless my colleague is too his co-workers. In fact, our office was a merry place except when that pompous colleague was around. Having dealt with a a true-life malvolio-type person my sympathy flies out the window.
Also keep in mind that MALvolio's name starts as the Latin suffix for 'bad' (malicious, malevolent, mala fide etc.). He's an unpleasant person even by name.