Olivia’s Gifts
When Olivia wants to let Cesario know that she loves him,
she sends him a ring by way of Malvolio. Later, when she mistakes
Sebastian for Cesario, she gives him a precious pearl. In each case,
the jewel serves as a token of her love—a physical symbol of her
romantic attachment to a man who is really a woman. The gifts are
more than symbols, though. “Youth is bought more oft than begged
or borrowed,” Olivia says at one point, suggesting that the jewels
are intended almost as bribes—that she means to buy Cesario’s love
if she cannot win it (III.iv.
The Darkness of Malvolio’s Prison
When Sir Toby and Maria pretend that Malvolio is mad,
they confine him in a pitch-black chamber. Darkness becomes a symbol
of his supposed insanity, as they tell him that the room is filled
with light and his inability to see is a sign of his madness. Malvolio reverses
the symbolism. “I say this house is as dark as ignorance, though
ignorance were as dark as hell; and I say there was never man thus
abused” (IV.ii.
Changes of Clothing
Clothes are powerful in Twelfth Night. They can symbolize changes in gender—Viola puts on male clothes to be taken for a male— as well as class distinctions. When Malvolio fantasizes about becoming a nobleman, he imagines the new clothes that he will have. When Feste impersonates Sir Topas, he puts on a nobleman’s garb, even though Malvolio, whom he is fooling, cannot see him, suggesting that clothes have a power that transcends their physical function.