Read a translation of
Act V, scene i →
Analysis
This long scene concludes the action of the play. A few
at a time, the play’s main characters enter until they are all in
the same place at the same time, and the various confusions and
deceptions can finally be resolved. Of course, the ultimate climax
is the reunion of Sebastian and Viola—their meeting unravels the
major deceptions and conflicts of the play.
The moment before the climax, significantly, is the most
complicated moment in the entire play for Viola, at least in terms
of how everyone understands her identity. Just before Sebastian’s
entrance, Viola, in her disguise as Cesario, is surrounded by many
people, each of whom has a different idea of who she is and none of
whom knows who she actually is. Sebastian’s entrance
at this point effectively saves Viola from her identity crisis.
We might think of the scene as showing Sebastian taking
over the aspects of Viola’s disguise that she no longer needs to
wear. It is Sebastian whom Antonio has really been seeking, Sebastian
who has really married Olivia, and, in the end, Sebastian who is
actually male. Thanks to her brother’s assumption of these roles,
Viola is free to cast off her masculine disguise. First she casts
it off through speech, as she lets everyone know that she is really
a woman, and then through deed, as she talks about putting back
on her women’s clothing, or “maiden weeds” (V.i.248).
But even once the truth about Viola’s womanhood comes
out, the uncertainty that her disguise has raised remains. For instance,
Orsino’s declaration of love to Viola is strangely phrased. Continuing
to address Viola as if she were male, he says, “Boy, thou hast said
to me a thousand times / Thou never shouldst love woman like to
me” (V.i.260–261). Similarly, in his final
lines Orsino declares,
Cesario, come—
For
so you shall be while you are a man;
But when
in other habits you are seen,
Orsino’s mistress,
and his fancy’s queen.
(V.i.372–375)
Orsino continues to address his future wife by her assumed
male name, which hints at his ongoing attachment to Viola’s masculine potential.
Though he knows Viola is a woman, he continues to recognize Cesario
as a legitimate identity for Viola. His statement that in female
garb Viola will be his queen does not make it clear that he is asking
Viola to renounce her assumed male identity forever; nor is it clear
whether Orsino is truly in love with Cesario or Viola.
Equally puzzling, but in a different way, is Orsino’s
earlier threat to kill Cesario when he thinks his servant has betrayed
him. “I’ll sacrifice the lamb that I do love,” he says, and Viola
acquiesces meekly (V.i.128). “And I, most
jocund, apt, and willingly, / To do you rest, a thousand deaths
would die,” she declaims (V.i.130–131). These bizarre
speeches—articulating Orsino’s strange violence and Viola’s apparent
death wish—recede into the background amid the general rejoicing
that follows, but they leave critics baffled. Perhaps Shakespeare
is suggesting that love is so close to madness that both Orsino and
Viola can easily tip over the edge into blood-drenched insanity, where
one lover becomes a killer and the other a sacrificial lamb.
Meanwhile, the general happiness that prevails is marred
by the reemergence of Malvolio from his dark prison. When the trick
is revealed, no one else seems to be quite as upset about it as
the steward. “Alas, poor fool, how have they baffled thee!” Olivia
says to him, calling the resolutely unfoolish Malvolio a “fool”
(V.i.358). This barb, at once, adds insult
to injury and shows how the spirit of the play has upended even
the steadfast, puritanical steward. The unamused Malvolio’s parting
remark—“I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you”—sounds a jarring
note in the supposedly tranquil, joyful concluding scene (V.i.365).
Malvolio’s anger injects a hint of pathos or realism into the otherwise
idyllic ending: someone must suffer while everyone else is happy.
Antonio is likewise sacrificed to the anarchic spirit of the play,
although less noticeably: his homosexual ardor for Sebastian must
go unsatisfied in a play where heterosexual marriage is the logical
endpoint.
