The Purpose of the Sub-plot in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night or What You Will is one of Shakespeare’s most famous comedies. It has been performed hundreds of times and adapted into a number of modern films. The main plot of the play follows Viola, a girl who is rescued from a shipwreck and enters into the service of the Duke Orsino disguised as a man. Rising quickly in his estimation, Viola begins delivering messages of love on his behalf to Olivia, a noble woman who has no interest in Orsino’s advances. Over the course of the play Olivia falls in love with the disguised Viola, Viola falls in love with Orsino, and Viola’s twin brother Sebastian, who supposedly died in the shipwreck, returns. Following Sebastian’s return the twins are mistaken for each other, leading to both†¦show more content†¦Therefore, both plots have symmetrical patterns with slight differences. In each plot, Olivia is the object of men’s affections and in both plots the men trying to woo her are thwarted. Salingar also argues that the sub-plot serves to amplify the main themes of the play. He asserts that the theme of misrule in the comic subplot â€Å"gives the underlying constructive principle of the whole play,† (Salingar 118) and the elements of unconscious parody in the sub-plot help to reinforce the theme of delusion and error. Misrule is common to both plots, perhaps more directly in the sub-plot and indirectly in the main plot. In the main plot the setting is fantasy-like, every day is a feast and the aristocracy enjoys freedom from the normal social constraints that characterized the period in which Shakespeare was writing. Misrule is necessary to explain a number of points in the main plot such as the sudden switch of romantic partners at the end of the play and Viola’s ability to remain undetected as a woman despite her feeble attempts at concealment. She nearly admits it to Olivia in the scene where she says, â€Å"What I am, and what I would, are as secret as maidenhead (1.5.). According to Cahill the subplot is, â€Å"historically-specific, more obviously grounded in Elizabethan social relations,† (63) thus the theme of misrule is represented in a more literal fashion. 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