Twelfth Night Gender

When thinking of what true love really is it is known that people have many different perspectives on its meaning. Love can be viewed as the physical attraction that one has to another, the desire that one has to be in another’s company, or the longing to have someone to love and be loved by. Shakespeare writes about love on many occasions within several of his romantic, comical, and dramatic plays. He uses many of his male characters to redefine what it means to be in love with a female, and to reveal to his audiences the drastic lengths that the males go to for their female counterparts. Shakespeare uses Antony from Antony and Cleopatra, as well as, Duke Orsino from Twelfth Night to demonstrate the subtle power that women had over men because
Dash further states, “According to Simone de Beauvoir, women’s “erotic urges” in a male-dominated society cause the problem. She writes of the decision women reach at maturity after having strugged during adolescence with the choice between self as primary and self as ‘Other’” (Dash 212). This is primary the struggle that Viola faces within the play as she chooses to deny her true gender and take the role of another. She makes an attempt to “retain her self-sovereignty even while expressing her ‘erotic urges’” (Dash 213) as a female, while in men’s clothing. She says, “O time, thou must untangle this, not I! / It is too hard a knot for me t’ untie” (Shakespeare 2.2.41). She accepts the fact that she cannot undo the mess that she has gotten herself into, only time can sort it all out. She takes advantage of the power she has over Orsino, but manages to fall in love with him while doing so. This same theme is also revealed within the modernized version of the play through the film She’s the Man. In Laurie E. Osborne’s “Twelfth Night's Cinematic Adolescents: One Play, One Plot, One Setting, And Three Teen Films”, she writes, “Intentionally or not. She's the Man demonstrates how teen Shakespeare creates an intertextual and intercinematic exchange that allows twentieth-century teen film to underscore features of Shakespeare's comedy…” (Osborne 14). She states that through Fickman’s recreation of Twelfth Night, viewers are able to get a sense of the comical Shakespeare’s plays. Orsino’s lose of masculinity is one of the main comical elements of the play that is clearly shown within the movie. During a conversation that the disguised Viola has with him about how to ask a girl out, he acts nervous and frustrated. She asks, “Why do I get the feeling you don’t do this very often?”, he replies, “Man, I’m just not really good at talking to girls” (She’s the Man). Viola not only plays