Orsino and Olivia

The play Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare is a romantic story constructed with many comical components, a mosaic of relationships, unfathomable love triangles, misleading perceptions, and complex characters. The most interesting people in the play are in fact quite similar. The characters of Olivia and Orsino are comparable in many ways. By looking at each character individually, Olivia and then Orsino, and also by comparing and contrasting the two it is clearly visible the consistent personality traits they both express.

Olivia’s intricate character is bold, desperate, and loving. She demonstrates traits of passion, loyalty, and confusion as well. She is bold in the way that she proclaims her love for Cesario begging him to love her back. Little does Olivia know that it is impossible to have Ceserio love her because he is actually a girl whom is in love with someone else but still Olivia tries to persuade Ceserio that she is worthy of loving: "Ceserio, by the roses of the spring....Love sought is good, but given unsought better."(3.1. 148-155)Olivia’s need for Ceserio and her desperate attempts to convince him that she’s worth it. She clings to him and begs him not to leave, falling to her knees and pleading with him. She is bold with her emotions and desperate for Ceserio’s love. However, with this boldness comes love and passion. She would do anything for Cesario because she did have having loving feelings for him, as demonstrated above. She cared for him in ways that only a person in love could. However, the sincerity of these feeling are questioned when Olivia suddenly and happily marries Sebastian simply because he resembles Ceserio. I think with that it displays the mannerisms of confusion. In the beginning of the play Olivia is mourning the death of her brother when Ceserio comes to court her on behalf of Orsino. Shortly after she meets with Ceserio she claims she can not love anyone, her heart is not ready for such a vestige. However, her feeling change after she exchanges words with Ceserio and suddenly she is madly in love with him. I think because death was not that far in the hindsight that maybe she jumped into having feelings for Ceserio to fill the void. Olivia’s portentousness is exhibited through a female character, however; this is not the only character who asserts these idiosyncrasies.

Orsino is a small yet significant character in this play. He is the reason for various love triangles that take place and the marriages that follow. Orsino is attempting to court Olivia but is not succeeding, and in fact she falls in love with his suitor. Orsino is a simple yet complex character just like the girl who’s heart he is trying to capture, Olivia. He exposes traits of obsession, love, passion, and acceptance. Orsino is a mild character who is completely engrossed with love as well as Olivia. “If music be the food of love, play on;/ give me excess of it…”(1.1. 1) is the first line of the entire play and sets up the theme of the production as bursting with love. It also proves the fact that Orsino loves the thought of love and all that it embodies. Not only is he captivated by the ideals of love he is also enchanted by Olivia: “O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first,/ Methought she purges the air of pestilence!/ That instant was I turn’d into a hart;/ And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,/ E’er since pursue me (1.1. 20-24). He is also passionate and will not give up on getting what he desires until he is satisfied. The final trait he portrays is acceptance. In the end of the play he accepts Ceserio as a girl, Viola, whom he eventually marries. He accepts his former servant boy to be a young maiden of nobility and gladly takes her hand in marriage because he already knows her, just as a boy. Orsino is characterized by many complicated traits but he successfully embodies each on of them, just like Olivia.

Olivia and Orsino clearly personify many of the same characteristics including: love, passion, obsession, and acceptance. They both love the ideals of love and what it represents probably more so than the people they actually have feelings for. They both were passionate for what they wanted and what they wanted was what they could not have which makes them both want it more. Olivia wanted Ceserio and Orsino wanted Olivia. They also demonstrate acts of obsession for what they were passionate about. Finally, the both are characterized by their traits of acceptance. Olivia and Orsino both eagerly accept the twins Sebastian and Viola for who they really are and in turn they each marry one. Olivia accepted that Ceserio was actually a girl and therefore not the object of her obsession but then she loves Sebastian simply because of the close resembles to Viola. Orsino accepts Viola as a noble women and not a servant boy who he eagerly makes his wife. These two characters even though trapped in a love triangle are so similar they are almost the same but portrayed through different gender and its corresponding tendencies.

Therefore, I see Olivia and Orsino are one in the same. They both are loving, passionate, obsessive, accepting, and in the end married to someone different than what they wanted in the beginning at the play. They both have feeling for the Viola/Ceserio character at some point and were interlocked in a complicated love “circle” if you will. Both of their names start with Os and are six letters long, coincidence? Possibly. The only real noticeable difference between the two is that they are opposite sexes. Olivia and Orsino are very similar characters that are deeply embedded into each other’s stories and I think that Shakespeare did this intentionally to add more complexity to this masterpiece.