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Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night revolves around the life of Viola, the play’s central character who disguises herself as a man when the story begins. Depicted as a comedy, the play describes a case of mistaken identity and a love triangle involving the three main characters. Throughout the narration, Shakespeare keeps the characters in a state of oblivion and allows the disguised female to keep her secret until the play’s finale. To bring forth the ideas and themes, the play focuses on its characters and their lives as they interact with each other.
Feste, one of the narration’s characters plays an important role in the novel by bring forth different themes through his words and actions. His witty nature is evident throughout the novel while he covers it in humor. We can consider this as wisdom as he manages to pass himself off as a fool. In addition, he is able to maintain a relationship with all the major characters. To determine his words and actions, this paper will analyze the themes associated with the character and the roles he plays in the plot development.
Feste is a neutral character in the narration as evidenced by his capability to go to Orsino’s household despite his being Olivia’s clown. This is an important aspect of the character because Orsino and Olivia are among the leading male and female characters of the play. His main duties find basis on his clown character within the play. However, readers are conscious of his other attributes of which most of the other characters are unaware. For instance, apart from his joking nature, Feste is wise as evidenced by his answer on whether he is Lady Olivia’s fool. To which he answers that, “Lady Olivia has no folly: she will keep no fool, sir, till she be married; and fools are as like husbands as pilchards are to herrings; the husband's the bigger: I am indeed not her fool, but her corrupter of words” (21) In the end, he has neither given a negative nor positive answer but has instead managed to show his wit and rectifies the assumption that he is a foolish man.
Throughout the play, only one character refers to Feste by his name yet at that time others still regard him as the fool (17). Feste’s character brings out the comedy aspect of the play as he derives humor from the other characters and has a witty trait that allows him to make wise yet funny statements with respect to the other personalities. This is apparent when Viola states that “This fellow is wise enough to play the fool; And to do that well craves a kind of wit: He must observe their mood on whom he jests, The quality of persons, and the time” (22) It is important to note that besides from others calling him a fool, Feste is also the clown, showing the expectation that he was to bring humor in his mistress’ home.
Shakespeare brings no complications in the understanding of what role Feste plays in the play. However, the audience has to be alert to notice that the character falls short of the expected of him. We see his importance in the ability to maintain good relations with everyone despite his musings that would otherwise cause retribution. For instance, his presence goes unquestioned in both Olivia’s and Orsino’s households and his loyalty to his mistress are unwavering. For a fool, he manages to act wise while at the same time, he manages to fool those considered wise in the play. One observes a good instance of this when he disguises himself as Mr. Topas and passes himself off as a curate to Mr. Malvolio. (32)
Feste’s words and actions are contrary to those of a clown. As stated above, the man has a lot of humor that he coats with words that many will consider wise. Aside from this, he manages to take actions that serve him best while he still convinces people that he is the normal clown. Throughout the narration, the clown uses words that depict his grasp of different situations and his vast understanding of the different characters with whom he interacts. On the other hand, his actions do not show any form of a clown character. Instead, he bases the said actions on concrete situations and not mere absurdity.
Feste’s words and actions seem to explain some facts in the play to the audience. This he does by singing, something that allows him to talk to the play’s characters and the audience as stated before. Shakespeare attests to this when he writes, “O mistress mine, where are you roaming? O, stay and hear; your true love’s coming, That can sing both high and low: Trip no further, pretty sweeting; Journeys end in lovers meeting, Every wise man’s son doth know” (14) This is a song sung by Feste in the play and is an attempt to help Sir Andrew in his bid to woo Lady Olivia. Nevertheless, it is ironical that the intelligent lot such as the aristocratic characters seeks a fool’s help.
Finally yet importantly, Twelfth Night is a comedy and carries a theme of disguises. Feste’s character provides the funny side in the play by analyzing situations and commenting on them with humorous yet wise terms. For instance, upon Sebastian’s refusal to follow him he states that, “Well held out, i’ faith! No, I do not know you; nor I am not sent to you by my lady, to bid you come speak with her; nor your name is not Master Cesario; nor this is not my nose. Nothing that is so is so” (31) There is a case of mistaken identity as in thinking of Sebastian to be Cesario. However, the audience is the only party aware of this as the characters insist that Sebastian is indeed Olivia’s new husband. The humorous aspect lies in the fact that though he makes jest, the clown is right, in reality there is no Mr. Cesario just as his nose is not real. With respect to the scene, Sebastian is not Cesario.
With regard to disguises, Feste is one of the characters that wear a disguise and proceed to pretend and pose as expected by the people they deceive. For instance, Viola pretends to be Cesario while Feste pretends to be Mr. Topas. Again, despite the play revolving around few major characters, Feste is involved with everyone. The disregard with which they treat him allows some manipulation and controlling on his part. In fact, his familiarity with Malvolio enables him to protect his disguise. With reference to this, readers and other audiences cannot miss the recurring term of ‘fool’ that Malvolio keeps calling the good Clergyman Mr. Topas (33). It is humorous because he is regarding the clown with the name acquitted to him but he is unaware of this fact.
Through Feste, Shakespeare manages to communicate his ideas to his audience while making sure he maintains the hilarity of the play. We can therefore, argue that Feste’s character connects the rest of the characters. In addition, while the fact that there is deception in the play and possible retribution once one finds out the truth, Feste puts readers at ease by his wittiness. Besides, major ideas in the drama surrounding Feste through his interactions with the other characters and the connection he offers between the sets mentioned in the play. These include Orsino’s household, Olivia’s household, and the room in which Malvolio is secluded.
Feste, one of the narration’s characters plays an important role in the novel by bring forth different themes through his words and actions. While the audience is aware of what goes on in the novel, the characters seem to be ignorant to the same. This however does not apply to Feste, because he seems unaffected by the end of the narration. For instance, Olivia finds out she is married to Sebastian while she had been in love with Viola while thinking she is Cesario. Therefore, it is clear that though minor, Feste is important to the characters and the audience as well.
In the play we note Feste not only does he enrich the themes bot also the style employed by Shakespeare. This is evident through irony where we observe other characters referring to him as fool yet he exhibits wisdom as aforementioned. Similarly, he portrays creativity through his wits an attribute of the mentally gifted thus, this contradicts the audiences’ expectations. Moreover, as earlier noted we see the intelligent such as the aristocratic characters seeking assistance from the fool. This scenario contradicts the expectations since it would have been the vice versa, that is, the clever helping the fool. Critically, Shakespeare draws our attention to the ironical part of life that even those regarded as foolish have their strengths and have a significant role in the society.
In conclusion, we acknowledge Feste’s role in the play by Shakespeare especially in the unfolding plot by being one of the main characters. Feste’s words and actions facilitate the achievement of the intended plot development by the playwright. This promotes the clarity of the themes desired by Shakespeare to his audience. One of the themes is the theme of disguises where Feste analyzes situations and comments on issues humorously but displays wisdom. Apart from the themes he contributes in characterization as we observe he interacts with all the characters to enable we understand him and them better. Through his words and actions, he reveals the style employed by the playwright. For instance, irony comes out clearly, when we see someone regarded a fool being wise and even assisting the intelligent. Therefore, Feste enriches all the aspects of the play.
Work Cited
Shakespeare, William. Twelfth Night. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004.
