Romance and gender positions i
Romance and gender positions iShakespeare's Twelfth Night examines patterns of love and courtship through a twisting of gender roles. In Act 3, scene 1, Olivia displays the confusion created for both characters and audience as she takes on the traditionally male role of wooer in an attempt to win the disguised Viola, or Cesario. Olivia praises Cesario's beauty and then addresses him with the belief that his "scorn" (3.1.134) only reveals his hidden love. However, Olivia's mistaken interpretation of Cesario's manner is only the surface problem presented by her speech. The reality of Cesario's gender, the active role Olivia takes in pursuing him/her, and the duality of word meanings in this passage threaten to turn the traditional patriarchal concept of courtship upside down, or as Olivia says turn "night to noon" (139).
Perhaps the biggest upset to the traditional structure is the possibility that Olivia may be in love with a woman. Shakespeare allows his audience to excuse this by having Olivia be unaware that Cesario is actually female. Yet, Olivia's attraction seems to stem exactly from the more feminine characteristics like Cesario's "beautiful scorn" and "angry lip" (136-137). Olivia's words allow an audience, particularly a modern one, to perhaps read her as suspecting or even knowing that Cesario is female, yet choosing to love him/her anyway.
Olivia's description of Cesario's beauty, both here and upon their first encounter, praises typically feminine qualities, but curiously doesn't question Cesario's gender. The comparison of love to guilt tempts the readers mind to wonder if Olivia is guilty about her love for such female attributes. Olivia's oath on maidenhood also tempts the reader toward a lesbian reading by hinting that Cesario would also understand maidenhood (141). When Olivia declares that not even "wit nor reason"(143) can hide her passion, she suggests that she would love Cesario even if it were against logic, as a same sex couple would be. Despite the unacceptability of a same sex romance in Shakespeare's time, the hints toward this reading seem visible enough to have been thought of then as well as today. Although probably not intended to the extent of a lesbian courtship, the situation of a woman wooing another woman presents a comical picture for the audience, perhaps even more so in the Elizabethan era with two male actors wooing each other as women. Shakespeare is able to pose the question of homosexual love by using "Cesario" as a shield to protect both the characters within the play and the audience from having to deal with the question directly.
Although he avoids denying the Elizabethan romantic conventions with an openly homosexual plot, Shakespeare does upset the norm by having Olivia act as suitor and having the "man" act as the object of desire. This role reversal is not hidden since Olivia plainly says "I woo"(145) as she addresses Cesario. The way in which she speaks to Cesario mimics the contemporary traditions perfectly. Cesario's refusal sets up the classic situation of the beloved as an object of unattainable perfection for the lover to praise. Olivia's speech is in rhymed couplets separating it, along with Viola's response, from the typical blank verse of the rest of the play as if they were intended to be poems standing on their own. Olivia swears by "everything" (141) that her passion cannot be restrained even by reason while simultaneously admiring Cesario's resistance (143). She follows the patriarchal formula perfectly, the only exception being her gender. Olivia's absurd situation of wooing a disguised woman makes her doomed to fail despite her ability to replicate the correct discourse.
On the contrary, perhaps Shakespeare's intention is to show that it is the very discourse which causes the failure. The foolishness of the scene; a male actor playing a woman, wooing another man playing a woman, who is playing a man, appears to poke fun at the entire convention. By swearing on "everything" Olivia devalues the things that she swore upon before and suddenly seems rather supercilious. The repeated use of the word "reason" and the ambiguous structure of the last line muddle Olivia's meaning to the point where it would be difficult for Cesario to choose whether or to not to comply and to what he would be complying to. Read in this manner, the passage becomes a satirical enactment of a traditional courtship. The gender switch serves to emphasize the impossibility of love within a structure which demands that the object of desire must refuse in order to remain desirable.
To cushion the mockery of the traditional discourse, an additional message can be extracted from Olivia's speech. The unhappiness of Olivia's impossible situation could be seen as a lesson for taking on the wrong role. By leaving her place as object and becoming the actor Olivia is unknowingly chasing after someone she can never have. When Sebastian appears, a male replication of Viola, then all the problems seem to evaporate because the proper gender roles have been restored. Yet without Sebastian, without the true male, chaos reigns and reason breaks down.
As if following the loss of order in the situation, the word "reason" seems to lose power within Olivia's speech. First "reason" (143) is not strong enough to contain her passion. Then she urges Cesario not to take his "reasons from this clause" (144), presumably indicating he should not base his decisions on her revealed passion, but should instead "reason thus with reason fetter" (146). Cesario should "fetter" the logic of not returning her love with the "reason", the explanation, she offers. By having "reason" fetter itself, it becomes helpless. The "fettering" of the word "reason" parallels the loss of reason, of logic, within the action of the play. It is Olivia's speech, her attempt to take the active "male" role which "fetters" reason. When she upsets the convention of female passivity, chaos is the result until Sebastian comes and saves the day. It is unclear whether Shakespeare is mocking the structure of the traditional courtship, reaffirming it with the message that when women step out of their proper roles that chaos results, or quite possibly proposing both.
Rather than resolving anything, the last line of the passage continues the ambiguity found throughout. "Love sought is good, but given unsought, is better" (147). Olivia could be saying that it is good for her to give love, but even better that she is giving it without reciprocation. This meaning would coincide with her weariness of suitors and with the standard of unfulfilled worship of the beloved. However, she may be asking the opposite, saying that she is happy to seek love, but would be even happier if it were given to her without her having to go after it. This would support the interpretation that she is not in her proper role, and will be happier if she returns to the traditional state of passivity.
The last line also returns to the problem of Cesario/Viola as both man and woman. One could read that it is better to love a member of the same sex and not have the love returned than to be hounded by suitors. The line might be read as the concluding lesson to a sarcastic representation of courtship; to follow the conventions is good, but to have love returned is much better. The opposite lesson, to follow the tradition of unreturned love, is equally plausible. Perhaps the line sends and follows both messages. Love is sought from Viola and never received, but "given unsought" by Sebastian who is truly unsought because he doesn't even exist for Olivia until the end of the play. By having Viola and Sebastian be virtually interchangeable, both variations can be enacted. Interestingly, neither option is faithful to the lover/beloved doctrine. Giving love without reciprocation would follow the doctrine, but in this case it is between two women. When Sebastian arrives the norm seems to be restored, but love is fulfilled when Sebastian consents to be ruled by Olivia. Even with all the problems supposedly solved, the gender role question is still present for Olivia seems never to have entirely relinquished her active "male" role. Twelfth Night tackles many uncomfortable issues regarding love and gender which Shakespeare never truly resolves for his audience. Instead he leaves the questions open, but contains the discomfort with humor, disguise, chaos and a happy ending.
Work Cited
Shakespeare, William. The Norton Shakespeare. Edited Stephen Greenblatt et al. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997oman can be considered morally right. Raskolnikov arbitrarily leaves out some necessary considerations in his moral “equation” that do not adhere to utilitarianism. A utilitarian would argue that Raskolnikov has not reached an acceptable solution because he has not accurately solved the problem. On the other hand, a non-utilitarian would reject even the notion of deliberating about the act of murder in such a mathematical manner. He might contend that Raskolnikov’s reasoning, and the entire theory of utilitarianism, cannot be used to judge morality because it rejects individual rights and contains no moral absolutes. A utilitarian bases his belief upon two principles: the theory of right actions and the theory of value. These two principles work together and serve as criteria for whether or not a utilitarian can deem an action morally right. First, the theory of right action argues that the morally right decision is the one whose consequences are at least as good as any other available option . For example, upon receiving the assignment for this paper, I could have chosen to ignore the assignment and spend my time on something more enjoyable, or I could have worked diligently on my paper, actually turning it in. Employing the utilitarian principle, I would have to weigh each option and then decide which one has consequences at least as good as or better than any of the other options possible. But, what standard do I use to gauge the consequences in order to choose the best alternative? The theory of right action does not stand alone as the only condition for ethical evaluations. To measure the given alternatives, I would have to apply the theory of value. The theory of value bases itself on the premise that pleasure is the only thing valuable in itself and as an end. Mill clearly states, “that all desirable things are desirable either for pleasure inherent in themselves or as means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain .” In my moral dilemma, I had to take each alternative and calculate the total amount of pleasure that each would produce, minus the total amount of pain each alternative would induce. So while not doing the paper might give me the most amount of immediate pleasure, the pain that I would incur upon receiving an F in my class would greatly reduce the amount of net pleasure. On the other hand, I might experience some pain (due to boredom, frustration, etc.) from writing the paper. However, this amount of pain would be outweighed by the pleasure of receiving an A on it, thus in turn raising my GPA, making my parents happy, graduating with honors, securing a six-figure salary job, marrying the perfect man, and having 2.5 kids. Therefore, utilitarianism not concerned with just the short-term consequences of the decision nor with the sole effects on the agent himself. A utilitarian must consider the long-term effects and the amount of pleasure or pain that others will experience as a result of his decision. The agent cannot just consider his personal level of pleasure or pain. In fact, there may be cases where the utilitarian's right decision may cause the agent only pain. However, in accordance to the greatest good for the greatest number philosophy of utilitarianism, the decision that is morally right produces the greatest amount of net pleasure for everyone involved. Raskolnikov seems to be employing utilitarianism when he justifies the murder of his landlady. According to Raskolnikov, he has two available options: murdering the old woman and giving away her money to benefit society or letting her live and watching the money waste away in a monastery when she dies of natural causes. Apparently, Raskolnikov has formulated an equation in which the old woman’s death has a greater positive differential between the pleasure and pain than not murdering her. He states that the pleasure the old woman's money would bring to the poor would outweigh the pain inflicted upon her. Although Raskolnikov’s reasoning seems to be a clear example of the utilitarian principle, in reality it simplifies utilitarianism to the point of distortion. A utilitarian would argue that Raskolnikov has not shown the murder to be morally justifiable because Raskolnikov abstracts the situation, does not develop key variables of utilitarianism, and thus has not accurately solved the problem. First, Raskolnikov does not fulfill the requirements for the theory of right action. Whereas the theory of right action deems an act morally right if it is the best choice out of all available options, Raskolnikov simplifies the situation and ignores other available options. Murdering the woman is not the only possibility for Raskolnikov if he truly wants to better society. He could, for example, steal the money which would inflict less pain on the old woman. He could find alternative ways to raise money (fundraising, donations, etc.) which would cancel out any factor of pain. Both alternatives would produce a greater amount of net pleasure than the single, drastic option Raskolnikov has considered. Raskolnikov has also not applied the theory of value because he has not weighed all the consequences accurately. In measuring the level of pleasure and pain associated with each outcome, a utilitarian must base his evaluation on the probabilities of all likely consequences. However, Raskolnikov, in his subjectivity of the situation, has not considered the likeliness of several possibilities. Raskolnikov might be caught in the act. He might prove to be ineffective in helping society. Mill clearly warns against using the utilitarian thought in trying to fix something as large and general as society . Therefore, Raskolnikov may cause a high degree of pain with no resulting pleasure to show for it. It is easy to see why Raskolnikov thinks that the old woman’s life is expendable. However, his reasoning is not applicable towards a utilitarian definition of "morally right". Only in an abstracted situation as the one Raskolnikov portrays, can his simplified conclusion be considered. In reality, his reasoning leaves out several elements such as numerous alternatives and unforseeable consequences, which true utilitarian arguments do not take for granted. The difference between utilitarian arguments, which Raskolnikov's reasoning does reflect to some extent, and non-utilitarian arguments, is that non-utilitarian moral theories do not cancel out an individual's pain as easily. Even if Raskolnikov could prove to the old woman that her death is the morally right decision according to utilitarianism, I doubt that she would go along with the plan. She would not be so hasty to overlook her personal pain, although it is outweighed by the positive consequences of her murder. A non-utilitarian would argue that one cannot simply dismiss the factor of pain, even if overshadowed by a greater amount of pleasure. In Raskolnikov's reasoning the pain of the old woman could never compete with the pleasure gained by society; therefore her suffering is tossed aside. This is because the theory of value cannot measure the value of an intangible quality such as life. However, a non-utilitarian would contend that the human life of an individual should be valued more than any other consideration, especially one as superficial as money, because once it is taken away, it is irrevocable. They would also assert that because utilitarianism values only those things which promote pleasure, it does not value human life. Life, like pleasure, is valuable in itself. A non-utilitarian would not look at moral dilemmas with the calculated objectivity that one uses when looking at a mathematical equation. To a non-utilitarian a human life holds a tremendous amount of value, a value that cannot be quantified into simplistic factors and then dismissed. Another problem that a non-utilitarian might have with Raskolnikov's use of utilitarianism is that his reasoning is not held to any moral absolutes. If Raskolnikov could prove that an act of murder was morally acceptable through a utilitarian equation, then anyone could calculate such heinous actions. We would have mobs of people murdering their rich, old landladies because they would feel that they are justified, if only they donate some of the money to charity. Anarchy and a disregard for human life would ensue if everyone subscribed to Raskolnikov's thinking. A non-utilitarian would argue that moral absolutes provide a standard by which people can gauge the morality of their decisions. However, in utilitarianism, there are no moral absolutes. So, who provides the standards to make sure that people do not feel justified in committing murder? Unfortunately, Mill does not make allowances for competent judges, so any practitioner of utilitarianism must come up with his own scale to measure pleasure and pain (and in turn morality). As we see in the Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov is not a competent judge. Therefore, he commits an immoral act, while feeling justified because he the utilitarian theory protects him. In conclusion, utilitarianism is the most democratic of moral theories. The greatest good for the greatest number mentality secures justice for the majority but fails to provide the rights due to the individual. However, unlike our democratic government, which employs a system of checks and balances to regulate itself, utilitarianism has no set standards to deem certain acts wrong. Raskolnikov demonstrates the mathematical objectivity of utilitarianism, although he miscalculates somewhat in his justification of murder. In such a calculated manner, personal pain and suffering are dismissed in lieu of the emphasis placed on monetary value. So while utilitarian would describe his formula as "the greatest good for the greatest number", a non-utilitarian would characterize it as "the happiness of many overshadowing the happiness of the individual".